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@@ -1,38 +1,4 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Seer of Slabsides, by Dallas Lore Sharp - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with -almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or -re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included -with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org - - -Title: The Seer of Slabsides - -Author: Dallas Lore Sharp - -Release Date: September 29, 2013 [EBook #43846] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ASCII - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SEER OF SLABSIDES *** - - - - -Produced by Greg Bergquist, Mary Akers and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This -file was produced from images generously made available -by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) - - - - - - - - +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 43846 *** Transcriber's note: Minor spelling and punctuation inconsistencies have been @@ -146,7 +112,7 @@ He was the simplest man I ever knew, simpler than a child; for children are often self-conscious and uninterested, whereas Burroughs's interest and curiosity grew with the years, and his directness, his spontaneity, his instant pleasure and his constant -joy in living, his utter naturalness and naivete amounted to genius. +joy in living, his utter naturalness and naïveté amounted to genius. They were his genius--and a stumbling-block to many a reader. _Similia similibus curantur_, or a thief to catch a thief, as we say; and it certainly requires such a degree of simplicity to understand @@ -598,7 +564,7 @@ Have I seen in nature the things that are there, or the strange man-things, the "winged creeping things which have four feet," and which were an abomination to the ancient Hebrews, but which the readers of modern nature-writing do greedily devour--are these the -things I have seen? And for an answer he sets about a reexamination +things I have seen? And for an answer he sets about a reëxamination of all he has written, from "Wake-Robin" to "Far and Near," hoping "that the result of the discussion or threshing will not be to make the reader love the animals less, but rather to love the truth more." @@ -1002,361 +968,4 @@ THE END End of Project Gutenberg's The Seer of Slabsides, by Dallas Lore Sharp -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SEER OF SLABSIDES *** - -***** This file should be named 43846.txt or 43846.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/4/3/8/4/43846/ - -Produced by Greg Bergquist, Mary Akers and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This -file was produced from images generously made available -by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions -will be renamed. - -Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no -one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation -(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without -permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or -re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included -with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org - - -Title: The Seer of Slabsides - -Author: Dallas Lore Sharp - -Release Date: September 29, 2013 [EBook #43846] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SEER OF SLABSIDES *** - - - - -Produced by Greg Bergquist, Mary Akers and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This -file was produced from images generously made available -by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) - - - - - - - - - -Transcriber's note: - Minor spelling and punctuation inconsistencies have been - harmonized. Italic text has been marked with _underscores_. - Obvious typos have been corrected. - - - - -THE SEER OF SLABSIDES - - - - - [Illustration: IN THE DOORWAY, SLABSIDES] - - - - THE - SEER OF SLABSIDES - - BY - DALLAS LORE SHARP - - - - - [Illustration] - - - - - BOSTON AND NEW YORK - HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY - The Riverside Press Cambridge - 1921 - - - - - COPYRIGHT, 1910, BY THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY COMPANY - COPYRIGHT, 1911 AND 1921, BY DALLAS LORE SHARP - ALL RIGHTS RESERVED - - - - - TO - HENRY FORD - LOVER OF BIRDS - FRIEND OF JOHN BURROUGHS - - - - -THE SEER OF SLABSIDES - - - - -THE SEER OF SLABSIDES - - - - -I - - -This title, "The Seer of Slabsides," does not quite fit John -Burroughs--the Burroughs I knew. He was a see-er. A lover of nature, -he watched the ways of bird and beast; a lover of life, he thought -out and wrought out a serene human philosophy that made him teacher -and interpreter of the simple and the near at hand rather than of -such things as are hidden and far off. He was altogether human; a -poet, not a prophet; a great lover of the earth, of his portion -of it in New York State, and of everything and everybody dwelling -there with him. He has added volumes to the area of New York State, -and peopled them with immortal folk--little folk, bees, bluebirds, -speckled trout, and wild strawberries. He was chiefly concerned with -living at Slabsides, or at Woodchuck Lodge, and with writing what -he lived. He loved much, observed and interpreted much, speculated -a little, but dreamed none at all. "The Lover of Woodchuck Lodge" I -might have called him, rather than "The Seer of Slabsides." - -Pietro, the sculptor, has made him resting upon a boulder, his -arm across his forehead, as his eyes, shielded from the sun, peer -steadily into the future and the faraway. I sat with the old -naturalist on this same boulder. It was in October, and they laid -him beside it the following April, on his eighty-fourth birthday. I -watched him shield his eyes with his arm, as the sculptor has made -him, and gaze far away over the valley to the rolling hills against -the sky, where his look lingered, sadly, wearily, for a moment at -their vaunting youth and beauty; then coming instantly back to the -field below us, he said: "This field is as full of woodchucks as -it was eighty years ago. I caught one right here yesterday. How -eternally interesting life is! I've studied the woodchuck all my -life, and there's no getting to the bottom of him." - -He knew, as I knew, that he might never rest against this rock again. -He had played upon it as a child. He now sleeps beside it. But so -interesting was the simplest, the most familiar thing to him, that -the long, long twilight, already filling the valley and creeping up -toward him, still gave him a chance, as we sat there, to watch the -woodchuck slipping from his burrow. Had I been the sculptor, I should -have made the old naturalist lying flat on the round of that rock, -his white beard a patch of lichen, his eyes peering from under his -slouch hat over the top of the boulder at something near at hand--at -the woodchuck feeding below in the pasture. - -He was the simplest man I ever knew, simpler than a child; for -children are often self-conscious and uninterested, whereas -Burroughs's interest and curiosity grew with the years, and his -directness, his spontaneity, his instant pleasure and his constant -joy in living, his utter naturalness and naïveté amounted to genius. -They were his genius--and a stumbling-block to many a reader. -_Similia similibus curantur_, or a thief to catch a thief, as we say; -and it certainly requires such a degree of simplicity to understand -Burroughs as few of us possess. - -Not every author improves upon personal acquaintance, but an actual -visit with Burroughs seems almost necessary for the right approach to -his books. Matter and manner, the virtues and faults of his writings, -the very things he did not write about, are all explained in the -presence of a man of eighty-three who brings home a woodchuck from -the field for dinner, and saves its pelt for a winter coat. And with -me at dinner that day were other guests, a lover of Whitman from -Bolton, England, a distinguished American artist, and others. - -The country road, hardly more than a farm lane, shies up close to -Woodchuck Lodge as it goes by. Here on the vine-grown porch was the -cot of the old naturalist, as close to the road as it could get. -Burroughs loved those remote ancestral hills, and all the little -folk who inhabitated them with him. He was as retiring and shy as -a song sparrow--who nests in the bushes, and sings from the fence -stake. No man loved his fellow-man more than Burroughs. Here in his -cot he could watch the stars come out upon the mountain-tops and see -the fires of dawn kindle where the stars had shone, and here, too, -he could see every passer-by and, without rising, for he had need -to rest, he could reach out a hand of welcome to all who stopped on -their journey past. - -And everybody stopped. If he had no fresh woodchuck to serve them, -he would have one out of a can, for no less in his home than in his -heart had he made provision for the coming guest. The stores of the -village were far away, but there was no lack of canned woodchuck and -hospitality in the Lodge. Few men have had more friends or a wider -range of friends than Burroughs. And months later, as I sat looking -over the strange medley of them gathered at his funeral, I wondered -at them, and asked myself what was it in this simple, childlike man, -this lover of the bluebird, of the earth on his breast and the sky -on his back, that drew these great men and little children about him. -He was elemental. He kept his soul. And through the press men crowded -up to touch him, and the virtue that went out from him restored to -them their souls--their bluebird with the earth on its breast and the -sky, the blue sky, on its back. - - - - -II - - -And this same restoration I find in his books. John Burroughs began -that long line of books by writing an essay for the "Atlantic -Monthly," entitled "Expression,"--"a somewhat Emersonian Expression," -says its author,--which was printed in the "Atlantic" for November, -1860, sixty-one years ago; and in each of those sixty-one years he -has not failed to publish one or more essays here where "Expression" -led the way. - -Sixty-one years are not threescore and ten, being nine years short. -Many men have lived and wrought for more than threescore and ten -years; but Burroughs's "Atlantic" years are unique. To write without -a break for sixty-one years, and keep one's eye undimmed, one's -natural force unabated, one's soul unfagged and as fresh as dawn, is -of itself a great human achievement. - -Only a few weeks before his death he sent me a copy of the last -book that he should see through the press, and who shall say that -"Accepting the Universe" lacks anything of the vigor or finish -or freshness found in his earliest books? It is philosophical, -theological, indeed, in matter, and rather controversial in style; -its theme is like that of "The Light of Day," a theme his pen was -ever touching, but nowhere with more largeness and beauty (and -inconsistency) than here. For Burroughs, though deeply religious, was -a poor theologian. He hated cant, and feared the very vocabulary -of theology as he feared the dark. Life was remarkably single with -Burroughs and all of a piece. In a little diary, one of the earliest -he has left us, he asks, under date of October 8, 1860 (a month -before his first essay appeared in the "Atlantic"): - -"Is there no design of analogy in this Universe? Are these striking -resemblances that wed remote parts, these family traits that break -out all through nature and that show the unity of the creating mind, -the work of chance? Are these resemblances and mutual answerings of -part to part that human intelligence sees and recognizes only in its -most exalted moments--when its vision is clearest--a mere accident?" - -That was written in pencil filling a whole page of his diary for -1860. On page 220 of "Accepting the Universe," published sixty-one -years later, and only a short time before his death, we find this -attempted answer: - -"So, when we ask, Is there design in Nature? we must make clear what -part or phase of Nature we refer to. Can we say that the cosmos as -a whole shows any design in our human sense of the word? I think -not. The Eternal has no purpose that our language can compass. -There can be neither center nor circumference to the Infinite. The -distribution of land and water on the globe cannot be the result of -design any more than can the shapes of the hills and mountains, or -Saturn's rings, or Jupiter's moons. The circular forms and orbits -of the universe must be the result of the laws of matter and force -that prevail in celestial mechanics; this is not a final solution of -the riddle, but is as near as we can come to it. One question stands -on another question, and that on another, and so on, and the bottom -question we can never reach and formulate." - -It is a beautiful illustration of the continuity, the oneness of -this singularly simple life; and it is as good an illustration of -how the vigor of his youth steadies into a maturity of strength -with age, which in many a late essay--as in "The Long Road," for -instance--lifts one and bears one down the unmeasured reaches of -geologic time as none of his earlier chapters do. - -Many men have written more than John Burroughs. His twenty-five -volumes are perhaps nothing remarkable for sixty years of steady -writing. But it is remarkable to come up to four and eighty with one -book just off the press, two more books in manuscript to appear after -the light has failed; for there is still a book of miscellaneous -papers, and some studies on Emerson and Thoreau yet to be published. - -And I think it a rather remarkable lot of books, beginning with -"Wake-Robin," running down through the titles, with "Winter -Sunshine," "Birds and Poets," "Locusts and Wild Honey," "Pepacton," -"Fresh Fields," "Signs and Seasons," "Riverby," "Far and Near," "Ways -of Nature," "Leaf and Tendril," "The Summit of the Years," "Time and -Change," "The Breath of Life," "Under the Apple-Trees," and "Field -and Study," to "Accepting the Universe," for these books deal very -largely with nature, and by themselves constitute the largest, most -significant group of nature-books that have come, perhaps, from any -single pen. - -These sixteen or seventeen volumes are John Burroughs's most -characteristic and important work. If he has done any desirable -thing, made any real contribution to American literature, that -contribution will be found among these books. His other books are -eminently worth while: there is reverent, honest thinking in his -religious essays, a creedless but an absolute and joyous faith; there -is simple and exquisite feeling in his poems; close analysis and an -unmitigatedness wholly Whitmanesque in his interpretation of Whitman; -and no saner, happier criticism anywhere than in his "Literary -Values." There are many other excellent critics, however, many poets -and religious writers, many other excellent nature-writers, too; but -is there any other who has written so much upon the ways of nature as -they parallel and cross the ways of men, upon so great a variety of -nature's forms and expressions, and done it with such abiding love, -with such truth and charm? - -Yet such a comparison is beyond proof, except in the least of the -literary values--mere quantity; and it may be with literature as -with merchandise: the larger the cask the greater the tare. Charm? -Is not charm that which I chance to like, or _you_ chance to like? -Others have written of nature with as much love and truth as has -John Burroughs, and each with his own peculiar charm: Audubon, with -the spell of wild places and the thrill of fresh wonder; Traherne, -with the ecstasy of the religious mystic; Gilbert White, with the -sweetness of the evening and the morning; Thoreau, with the heat -of noonday; Jefferies, with just a touch of twilight shadowing all -his pages. We want them severally as they are; John Burroughs as he -is, neither wandering "lonely as a cloud" in search of poems, nor -skulking in the sedges along the banks of the Guaso Nyero looking -for lions. We want him at Slabsides, near his celery fields, or at -Woodchuck Lodge overlooking the high fields that run down from the -sky into Montgomery Valley. And whatever the literary quality of our -other nature-writers, no one of them has come any nearer than John -Burroughs to that difficult ideal--a union of thought and form, no -more to be separated than the heart and the bark of a live tree. - -Take John Burroughs's work as a whole, and it is beyond dispute the -most complete, the most revealing, of all our outdoor literature. -His pages lie open like the surface of a pond, sensitive to every -wind, or calm as the sky, holding the clouds and the distant blue, -and the dragon-fly, stiff-winged, and pinned to the golden knob of a -spatter-dock. - -All outdoor existence, all outdoor phenomena, are deeply interesting -to him. There is scarcely a form of outdoor life, scarcely a piece -of landscape, or natural occurrence characteristic of the Eastern -States, which has not been dealt with suggestively in his pages: the -rabbit under his porch, the paleozoic pebble along his path, the salt -breeze borne inland by the Hudson, the whirl of a snow-storm, the -work of the honey bees, the procession of the seasons over Slabsides, -even the abundant soil out of which he and his grapes grew and which, -"incorruptible and undefiled," he calls divine. - -He devotes an entire chapter to the bluebird, a chapter to the fox, -one to the apple, another to the wild strawberry. The individual, -the particular thing, is always of particular interest to him. But -so is its habitat, the whole of its environment. He sees the gem, -not cut and set in a ring, but rough in the mine, where it glitters -on the hand of nature, and glitters all the more that it is worn in -the dark. Naturally John Burroughs has written much about the birds; -yet he is not an ornithologist. His theme has not been this or that, -but nature in its totality, as it is held within the circle of his -horizon, as it surrounds, supports, and quickens him. - -That nature does support and quicken the spiritual of him, no less -than the physical, is the inspiration of his writing and the final -comment it requires. Whether the universe was shaped from chaos with -man as its end, is a question of real concern to John Burroughs, -but of less concern to him than the problem of shaping himself to -the universe, of living as long as he can upon a world so perfectly -adapted to life, if only one be physically and spiritually adaptable. -To take the earth as one finds it, to plant one's self in it, to -plant one's roof-tree in it, to till it, to understand it and the -laws which govern it, and the Perfection which created it, and to -love it all--this is the heart of John Burroughs's religion, the pith -of his philosophy, the conclusion of his books. - -But if a perfect place for the fit, how hard a place is this world -for the lazy, the ignorant, the stubborn, the weak, the physically -and spiritually ill! So hard that a torpid liver is almost a mortal -handicap, the stars in their courses fighting against the bilious to -defeat them, to drive them to take exercise, to a copious drinking -of water, to a knowledge of burdock and calomel--to obedience and -understanding. - -Underlying all of John Burroughs's thought and feeling, framing -every one of his books, is a deep sense of the perfection of nature, -the sharing of which is physical life, the understanding of which -is spiritual life, is knowledge of God himself, in some part of His -perfection. "I cannot tell what the simple apparition of the earth -and sky mean to me; I think that at rare intervals one sees that they -have an immense spiritual meaning, altogether unspeakable, and that -they are the great helps, after all." How the world was made--its -geology, its biology--is the great question, for its answer is poetry -and religion and life itself. John Burroughs was serenely sure as to -how the world was made; the theological speculation as to _why_ it -was made, he answered by growing small fruits on it, living upon it, -writing about it. - -Temperamentally John Burroughs was an optimist, as vocationally -he was a writer, and avocationally a vine-dresser. He planted and -expected to gather--grapes from his grapevines, books from his -book-vines, years, satisfactions, sorrows, joys, all that was due him. - - The waters know their own and draw - The brook that springs in yonder heights; - So flows the good with equal law - Unto the soul of pure delights. - -And what is it that was due him? Everything; everything essential; -as everything essential is due the pine-tree, the prairie, the very -planet. Is not this earth a star? Are not the prairie, the pine-tree, -and man the dust of stars? each a part of the other? all parts of one -whole--a universe, round, rolling, without beginning, without end, -without flaw, without lack, a universe self-sustained, perfect? - - I stay my haste, I make delays, - For what avails this eager pace? - I stand amid the eternal ways, - And what is mine shall know my face. - -John Burroughs came naturally by such a view of nature and its -consequent optimism. It was due partly to his having been born and -brought up on a farm where he had what was due him from the start. -Such birth and bringing-up is the natural right of every boy. To know -and to do the primitive, the elemental; to go barefoot, to drive the -cows, to fish, and to go to school with not too many books, but with -"plenty of real things"--these are nominated in every boy's bond. - - Serene, I fold my hands and wait, - -is the poem of a childhood on the farm, and the poem of a manhood on -the farm, in spite of the critic who says: - -"We have never ceased to wonder that this friend of the birds, -this kindly interpreter of nature in all her moods, was born and -brought up on a farm; it was in that smiling country watered by the -east branch of the Delaware. No man, as a rule, knows less about -the colors, songs, and habits of birds, and is more indifferent to -natural scenery than the man born to the soil, who delves in it and -breathes its odors. Contact with it and laborious days seem to deaden -his faculties of observation and deprive him of all sympathy with -nature." - -During the days when the deadening might have occurred, John -Burroughs was teaching school. Then he became a United States bank -examiner, and only after that returned to the country--to Riverby and -Slabsides, and Woodchuck Lodge,--to live out the rest of his years, -years as full of life and books as his vines along the Hudson are -full of life and grapes. - -Could it be otherwise? If men and grapes are of the same divine -dust, should they not grow according to the same divine laws? Here -in the vineyard along the Hudson, John Burroughs planted himself in -planting his vines, and every trellis that he set has become his own -support and stay. The very clearing of the land for his vineyard was -a preparation of himself physically and morally for a more fruitful -life. - -"Before the snow was off in March," he says in "Literary Values," "we -set to work under-draining the moist and springy places. My health -and spirits improved daily. I seemed to be under-draining my own life -and carrying off the stagnant water, as well as that of the land." -And so he was. There are other means of doing it--taking drugs, -playing golf, walking the streets; but surely the advantages and the -poetry are all in favor of the vineyard. And how much fitter a place -the vineyard to mellow and ripen life, than a city roof of tarry -pebbles and tin! - -Though necessarily personal and subjective, John Burroughs's writing -is entirely free from self-exploitation and confession. There are -pages scattered here and there dealing briefly and frankly with his -own natural history, but our thanks are due to John Burroughs that -he never made a business of watching himself. Once he was inveigled -by a magazine editor into doing "An Egotistical Chapter," wherein -we find him as a boy of sixteen reading essays, and capable at that -age of feeding for a whole year upon Dr. Johnson! Then we find him -reading Whipple's essays, and the early outdoor papers of Higginson; -and later, at twenty-three, settling down with Emerson's essays, and -getting one of his own into the "Atlantic Monthly." - -How early his own began to come to him! - -That first essay in the "Atlantic" was followed by a number of -outdoor sketches in the New York "Leader"--written, Burroughs says, -"mainly to break the spell of Emerson's influence and get upon -ground of my own." He succeeded in both purposes; and a large and -exceedingly fertile piece of ground it proved to be, too, this which -he got upon! Already the young writer had chosen his field and his -crop. The out-of-doors has been largely his literary material, as the -essay has been largely his literary form, ever since. He has done -other things--volumes of literary studies and criticisms; but his -theme from first to last has been the Great Book of Nature, a page of -which, here and there, he has tried to read to us. - -Burroughs's work, in outdoor literature, is a distinct species, with -new and well-marked characteristics. He is the nature-writer, to be -distinguished from the naturalist in Gilbert White, the mystic in -Traherne, the philosopher in Emerson, the preacher, poet, critic in -Thoreau, the humorist in Charles Dudley Warner. As we now know the -nature-writer we come upon him for the first time in John Burroughs. -Such credit might have gone to Thomas Wentworth Higginson, had he -not been something else before he was a lover of nature--of letters -first, then of flowers, carrying his library into the fields; whereas -Burroughs brings the fields into the library. The essay whose matter -is nature, whose moral is human, whose manner is strictly literary, -belongs to John Burroughs. His work is distinguished by this -threefold and _even_ emphasis. In almost every other of our early -outdoor writers either the naturalist or the moralist or the stylist -holds the pen. - -Early or late, this or that, good outdoor writing must be marked, -first, by fidelity to fact; and, secondly, by sincerity of -expression. Like qualities mark all good literature; but they -are themselves the _very_ literature of nature. When we take up a -nature-book we ask (and it was Burroughs who taught us to ask), "Is -the record true? Is the writing honest?" - -In these many volumes by John Burroughs there are many observations, -and it is more than likely that some of them may be wrong, but it is -not possible that any of them could be mixed with observations that -Burroughs knows he never made. If Burroughs has written a line of -sham natural history, which line is it? In a preface to "Wake-Robin," -the author says his readers have sometimes complained that they do -not see the things which he sees in the woods; but I doubt if there -ever was a reader who suspected John Burroughs of not seeing the -things. - -His reply to these complaints is significant, being in no manner a -defense, but an exquisite explanation, instead, of the difference -between the nature which anybody may see in the woods and the -nature that every individual writer, because he is a writer, and an -individual, must put into his book: a difference like that between -the sweet-water gathered by the bee from the flowers and the drop of -acid-stung honey deposited by the bee in the comb. The sweet-water -undergoes a chemical change in being brought to the hive, as the wild -nature undergoes a literary change--by the addition of the writer's -self to the nature, while with the sweet-water it is by the addition -of the bee. - -One must be able to walk to an editorial office and back, and all the -way walk humbly with his theme, as Burroughs ever does--not entirely -forgetful of himself, nor of me (because he has invited me along); -but I must be quiet and not disturb the fishing--if we go by way of a -trout-stream. - -True to the facts, Burroughs is a great deal more than scientific, -for he loves the things--the birds, hills, seasons--as well as the -truths about them; and true to himself, he is not by any means a -simple countryman who has never seen the city, a natural idyl, who -lisps in books and essays, because the essays come. He is fully aware -of the thing he wants to do, and by his own confession has a due -amount of trouble shaping his raw material into finished literary -form. He is quite in another class from the authors of "The Complete -Angler" and "New England's Rarities Discovered." In Isaak Walton, to -quote Leslie Stephen, "_a happy combination of circumstances_ has -provided us with a true country idyl, fresh and racy from the soil, -not consciously constructed by the most skillful artistic hand." - -Now the skillful artistic hand is everywhere seen in John Burroughs. -What writer in these days could expect happy combinations of -circumstances in sufficient numbers for so many volumes? - -But being an idyl, when you come to think of it, is not the result -of a happy combination of circumstances, but rather of stars--of -horoscope. You are born an idyl or you are not, and where and when -you live has nothing to do with it. - -Who would look for a true country idyl to-day in the city of -Philadelphia? Yet one came out of there yesterday, and lies here -open before me, on the table. It is a slender volume, called "With -the Birds, An Affectionate Study," by Caroline Eliza Hyde. The -author is discussing the general subject of nomenclature and animal -distribution, and says: - -"When the Deluge covered the then known face of the earth, the birds -were drowned with every other living thing, except those that Noah, -commanded by God, took two by two into the Ark. - -"When I reflect deeply and earnestly about the Ark, as every one -should, thoughts crowd my mind with an irresistible force." - -[And they crowd my mind, too.] - -"Noah and his family had preserved the names of the birds given them -by Adam. This is assured, for Noah sent a raven and a dove out to see -if the waters had abated, and we have birds of that name now. Nothing -was known of our part of the globe, so these birds must have remained -in the Holy Land for centuries. We do not hear of them until America -was discovered.... - -"Bats come from Sur. They are very black mouse-like birds, and -disagreeable.... The bobolink is not mentioned in the Bible, but it -is doubtless a primitive bird. The cock that crows too early in the -morning ... can hardly be classed with the song-birds. The name -of the humming-bird is not mentioned in the Bible, but as there is -nothing new under the sun, he is probably a primitive bird." - -Burroughs would have agreed that the humming-bird is probably a -primitive bird; and also that this is a true idyl, and that he could -not write a true idyl if he tried. No one could write like that by -trying. And what has any happy combination of circumstances to do -with it? No, a book essentially is only a personality in type, and -he who would not be frustrated of his hope to write a true idyl must -himself be born a true idyl. A fine Miltonic saying! - -John Burroughs was not an idyl, but an essayist, with a love for -books only second to his love for nature; a watcher in the woods, -a tiller of the soil, a reader, critic, thinker, poet, whose chief -business these sixty years has been the interpretation of the -out-of-doors. - -Upon him as interpreter and observer, certain of his books, "Ways of -Nature" and "Leaf and Tendril," are an interesting comment. - -Truth does not always make good literature, not when it is stranger -than fiction, as it often is; and the writer who sticks to the truth -of nature must sometimes do it at the cost of purely literary ends. -Have I sacrificed truth to literature? asks Burroughs of his books. -Have I seen in nature the things that are there, or the strange -man-things, the "winged creeping things which have four feet," and -which were an abomination to the ancient Hebrews, but which the -readers of modern nature-writing do greedily devour--are these the -things I have seen? And for an answer he sets about a reëxamination -of all he has written, from "Wake-Robin" to "Far and Near," hoping -"that the result of the discussion or threshing will not be to make -the reader love the animals less, but rather to love the truth more." - -But the result, as embodied in "Ways of Nature" and in "Leaf and -Tendril," is quite the opposite, I fear; for these two volumes are -more scientific in tone than any of his other work; and it is the -mission, not of science, but of literature, to quicken our love -for animals, even for truth. Science only adds to the truth. Yet -here, in spite of himself, Burroughs is more the writer, more the -interpreter, than the investigator. He is constantly forgetting his -scientific thesis, as, for instance, in the account of his neighbor's -errant cow. He succeeds finally, however, in reducing her fairly well -to a mechanical piece of beef acting to vegetable stimuli upon a -nerve ganglion located somewhere in the region between her horns and -her tail. - -Now, all this is valuable, and the use made of it is laudable, but -would we not rather have the account than the cow, especially from -Burroughs? Certainly, because to us it is the _account_ that he has -come to stand for. And so, if we do not love his scientific animals -more, and his scientific findings more, we shall, I think, love all -his other books more; for we see now that, from the beginning, -he has regarded the facts of nature as the solid substance of his -books, to be kept as free from fancy and from false report, as his -interpretation of them is to be kept free from all exaggeration and -cant. - -Here, then, are a score of volumes of honest seeing, honest -feeling, honest reporting. Such honesty of itself may not make good -nature-literature, but without such honesty there can be no good -nature-literature. - -Nature-literature is not less than the truth, but more; how much -more, Burroughs himself suggests to us in a passage about his -literary habits. - -"For my part," he says, "I can never interview Nature in the reporter -fashion. I must camp and tramp with her to get any good, and what -I get I absorb through my emotions rather than consciously gather -through my intellect.... An experience must lie in my mind a certain -time before I can put it upon paper--say from three to six months. -If there is anything in it, it will ripen and mellow by that time. -I rarely take any notes, and I have a very poor memory, but rely -upon the affinity of my mind for a certain order of truths or -observations. What is mine will stick to me, and what is not will -drop off. We who write about Nature pick out, I suspect, only the -rare moments when we have had glimpses of her, and make much of them. -Our lives are dull, our minds crusted over with rubbish like those -of other people. Then writing about Nature, or about most other -subjects, is an expansive process; we are under the law of evolution; -we grow the germ into the tree; a little original observation goes a -good way." For "when you go to Nature, bring us good science or else -good literature, and not a mere inventory of what you have seen. One -demonstrates, the other interprets." - -Careful as John Burroughs has been with his facts, so careful -as often to bring us excellent science, he yet has left us no -inventory of the out-of-doors. His work is literature; he is not a -demonstrator, but an interpreter, an expositor who is true to the -text and true to the whole of the context. - -Our pleasure in Burroughs as an interpreter comes as much from -his wholesome good sense, from his balance and sanity, I think, as -from the assurance of his sincerity. Free from pose and cant and -deception, he is free also from bias and strain. There is something -ordinary, normal, reasonable, companionable, about him; an even tenor -to all his ways, a deliberateness, naturalness to all his paths, as -if they might have been made originally by the cows. So they were. - -If Burroughs were to start from my door for a tramp over these small -Hingham hills he would cross the trout-brook by my neighbor's stone -bridge, and, nibbling a spear of peppermint on the way, would follow -the lane and the cow-paths across the pasture. Thoreau would pick -out the deepest hole in the brook and try to swim across; he would -leap the stone walls of the lane, cut a bee-line through the pasture, -and drop, for his first look at the landscape, to the bottom of the -pit in the seam-face granite quarry. Here he would pull out his -notebook and a gnarly wild apple from his pocket, and, intensely, -critically, chemically, devouring said apple, make note in the book -that the apples of Eden were flat, the apples of Sodom bitter, but -this wild, tough, wretched, impossible apple of the Hingham hills -united all ambrosial essences in its striking odor of squash-bugs. - -Burroughs takes us along with him. Thoreau comes upon us in the -woods--jumps out at us from behind some bush, with a "_Scat!_" -Burroughs brings us home in time for tea; Thoreau leaves us tangled -up in the briars. - -It won't hurt us to be jumped at now and then and told to "_scat!_" -It won't hurt us to be digged by the briars. It is good for us, -otherwise we might forget that _we_ are beneath our clothes. It is -good for us and highly diverting,--and highly irritating too. - -But Thoreau stands alone. "Walden Pond" is one of America's certain -contributions to the world's great books. - -For my part, when I take up an outdoor book I am glad if there -is quiet in it, and fragrance, and something of the saneness and -sweetness of the sky. Not that I always want sweet skies. It is -ninety-eight degrees in the shade, and three weeks since there fell -a drop of rain. I could sing like a robin for a sizzling, crackling -thunder-shower--less for the sizzling and crackling than for the -shower. Thoreau is a succession of showers--"tempests"; his pages -are sheet-lightning, electrifying, purifying, illuminating, but not -altogether conducive to peace. "Walden Pond" is something more than -a nature book. There is a clear sky to most of Burroughs's pages, a -rural landscape, wide, gently rolling, with cattle standing here and -there beneath the trees. - -Burroughs's natural history is entirely natural, his philosophy -entirely reasonable, his religion and ethics very much of the kind we -wish our minister and our neighbor might possess; and his manner of -writing is so unaffected that we feel we could write in such a manner -ourselves. Only we cannot. - -Since the time he can be said to have "led" a life, Burroughs has -led a literary life; that is to say, nothing has been allowed to -interfere with his writing; yet the writing has not been allowed -to interfere with a quiet successful business--with his raising of -grapes. - -He has a study and a vineyard. - -Not many men ought to live by the pen alone. A steady diet of -inspiration and words is hard on the literary health. The writing -should be varied with some good, wholesome work, actual hard work -for the hands; not so much work, perhaps, as one would find in -an eighteen-acre vineyard; yet John Burroughs's eighteen acres -certainly proved to be no check--rather, indeed, a stimulus--to his -writing. He seems to have gathered a volume out of every acre; and -he seems to have put a good acre into every volume. "Fresh Fields" -is the name of one of the volumes, "Leaf and Tendril" of another; -but the freshness of his fields, the leaves and the tendrils of his -vineyard, enter into them all. The grapes of the vineyard are in them -also. - -Here is a growth of books out of the soil, books that have been -trimmed, trained, sprayed, and kept free from rot. Such books may not -be altogether according to the public taste; they will keep, however, -until the public acquires a better taste. Sound, ripe, fresh, early -and late, a full crop! Has the vineyard anything to do with it? - -It is not every farmer who should go to writing, nor every writer -who should go to farming; but there is a mighty waste of academic -literature, of premature, precocious, lily-handed literature, of -chicken-licken literature, because the writers do not know a spade -when they see one, would not call it a spade if they knew. Those -writers need to do less writing and more farming, more real work with -their soft hands in partnership with the elemental forces of nature, -or in comradeship with average elemental men--the only species extant -of the quality to make writing worth while. - -John Burroughs had this labor, this partnership, this comradeship. -His writing is seasoned and sane. It is ripe, and yet as fresh as -green corn with the dew in the silk. You have eaten corn on the cob -just from the stalk and steamed in its own husk? Green corn that _is_ -corn, that has all its milk and sugar and flavor, is corn on the cob, -and in the husk--is cob and kernel and husk--not a stripped ear that -is cooked into the kitchen air. - -Literature is too often stripped of its human husk, and cut from its -human cob: the man gone, the writer left; the substance gone, the -style left--corn that tastes as much like corn as it tastes like -puffed rice--which tastes like nothing at all. There is the sweetness -of the husk, the flavor of the cob, the substance of the uncut corn -to John Burroughs. - -There is no lack of cob and husk to Thoreau--of shell and hull, one -should say, for he is more like a green walnut than an ear of green -corn. Thoreau is very human, a whole man; but he is almost as much -a tree, and a mountain, and a pond, and a spell of weather, and a -state of morals. He is the author of "Walden," and nobody else in -the world is that; he is a lover of Nature, as ardent a lover as -ever eloped with her; he is a lover of men, too, loving them with an -intensity that hates them bag and baggage; he is poetical, prophetic, -paradoxical, and utterly impossible. - -But he knew it. Born in Concord, under the transcendental stars, at -a time when Delphic sayings and philosophy, romance and poetry ran -wild in the gardens where Bouncing-Bet and Wayward Charlie now run -wild, Thoreau knew that he was touched, and that all his neighbors -were touched, and sought asylum at Walden. But Walden was not distant -enough. If John Burroughs in Roxbury, New York, found it necessary -to take to the woods in order to escape from Emerson, then Thoreau -should have gone to Chicago, or to Xamiltepec. - -It is the strain, in Thoreau, that wearies us; his sweating among the -stumps and woodchucks, for a bean crop netting him eight dollars, -seventy-one and one half cents. But such beans! Beans with minds -and souls! Yet, for baking, plain beans are better than these -transcendental beans, because your transcendental beans are always -baked without pork. A family man, however, cannot contemplate that -piddling patch with any patience, even though he have a taste for -literature as real as his taste for beans. It is better to watch -John Burroughs pruning his grapevines for a crop to net him one -thousand, three hundred and twenty-five dollars, and _no_ cents, and -no half-cents. Here were eighteen acres to be cultivated, whose fruit -was to be picked, shipped, and sold in the New York markets at a -profit--a profit plainly felt in John Burroughs's books. - -Reading what I have just said, as it appeared in the "Atlantic" for -November, 1910, Burroughs wrote in the course of a letter to me: - -"I feel like scolding you a little for disparaging Thoreau for my -benefit. Thoreau is nearer the stars than I am. I may be more human, -but he is as certainly more divine. His moral and ethical value I -think is much greater, and he has a heroic quality that I cannot -approach." - -Perhaps no truer word will ever be said of these two men than that; -and certainly no more generous word was ever spoken by one great -writer of another, his nearest rival. I have not, nor would I, -disparage Thoreau for Burroughs's benefit. Thoreau dwells apart. He -is long past all disparagement. "Walden Pond" and "The Week," if not -the most challenging, most original books in American literature, -are, with Whitman's "Leaves of Grass" and Emerson's "Essays," among -those books. - -Thoreau and Burroughs had almost nothing in common except their love -of nature, and in that they were farther apart than in anything -else, Thoreau searching by night and day in all wild places for his -lost horse and hound while Burroughs quietly worshiped, as his rural -divinity, the ruminating cow. - -The most worthy qualities of good writing are those least -noticeable--negative qualities of honesty, directness, sincerity, -euphony; noticeable only by their absence. Yet in John Burroughs they -amounted to a positive charm. Indeed, are not these same negative -qualities the very substance of good style? Such style as is had by a -pair of pruning-shears, as is embodied in the exquisite lines of a -flying swallow--the style that is perfect, purposeful adaptability? - -But there is more than efficiency to John Burroughs's style; there -are strengths and graces existing in and for themselves. Here is -a naturalist who has studied the art of writing. "What little -merit my style has," he declares, "is the result of much study -and discipline." And whose style, if it be style at all, is not -the result of much study and discipline? Flourish, fine-writing, -wordiness, obscurity, and cant are exorcised in no other way; and -as for the "limpidness, sweetness, freshness," which John Burroughs -says should characterize outdoor writing, and which do characterize -his writing, how else than by study and discipline shall they be -obtained? - -Outdoor literature, no less than other types of literature, is both -form and matter; the two are mutually dependent, inseparably one; -but the writer is most faithful to the form when he is most careful -of the matter. It makes a vast difference whether his interest is -absorbed by what he has to say, or by the possible ways he may say -it. If John Burroughs wrote in his shirt-sleeves, as a recent critic -says he did, it was because he went about his writing as he went -about his vineyarding--for grapes, for thoughts, and not to see how -pretty he could make a paragraph look, or into what fantastic form he -could train a vine. The vine is lovely in itself--if it bear fruit. - -And so is language. Take John Burroughs's manner in any of its moods: -its store of single, sufficient words, for instance, especially the -homely, rugged words and idioms, and the flavor they give, is second -to the work they do; or take his use of figures--when he speaks of -De Quincey's "discursive, roundabout style, herding his thoughts as -a collie dog herds sheep"--and unexpected, vivid, apt as they are, -they are even more effective. One is often caught up by the poetry of -these essays and borne aloft, but never on a gale of words; the lift -and sweep are genuine emotion and thought. - -As an essayist--as a nature-writer I ought to say--John Burroughs's -literary care is perhaps nowhere so plainly seen as in the simple -architecture of his essay plans, in their balance and finish, a -quality that distinguishes him from others of the craft, and that -neither gift nor chance could so invariably supply. The common -fault of outdoor books is the catalogue--raw data, notes. There are -paragraphs of notes in John Burroughs, volumes of them in Thoreau. -The average nature-writer sees not too much of nature, but knows all -too little of literary values; he sees everything, gets a meaning -out of nothing; writes it all down; and gives us what he sees, which -is precisely what everybody may see; whereas, we want also what he -thinks and feels. Some of our present writers do nothing but feel and -divine and fathom--the animal psychologists, whatever they are. The -bulk of nature-writing, however, is journalistic, done on the spot, -into a notebook, as were the journals of Thoreau--fragmentary, yet -with Thoreau often exquisite fragments--bits of old stained glass, -unleaded, and lacking unity and design. - -No such fault can be found with John Burroughs. He went pencilless -into the woods, and waited before writing until his return home, -until time had elapsed for the multitudinous details of the trip to -blur and blend, leaving only the dominant facts and impressions for -his pen. Every part of his work is of selected stock, as free from -knots and seams and sapwood as a piece of old-growth pine. There is -plan, proportion, integrity to his essays--the naturalist living -faithfully up to a sensitive literary conscience. - -John Burroughs was a good but not a great naturalist, as Audubon and -Gray were great naturalists. His claim (and Audubon's in part) upon -us is literary. He was a watcher in the woods; he made a few pleasant -excursions into the primeval wilderness, leaving his gun at home, and -his camera, too, thank Heaven! He broke out no new trail, discovered -no new animal, no new thing. But he saw all the old, uncommon things, -saw them oftener, watched them longer, through more seasons, than -any other writer of our out-of-doors; and though he discovered no -new thing, yet he made discoveries, volumes of them--contributions -largely to our stock of literature, and to our store of love for -the earth, and to our joy in living upon it. He turned a little -of the universe into literature; translated a portion of the earth -into human language; restored to us our garden here eastward in -Eden--apple-tree and all. - -For a real taste of fruity literature, try John Burroughs's -chapter on "The Apple." Try Thoreau's, too,--if you are partial to -squash-bugs. There are chapters in John Burroughs, such as "Is it -going to Rain?" "A River View," "A Snow-Storm," which seem to me as -perfect, in their way, as anything that has ever been done--single, -simple, beautiful in form, and deeply significant; the storm being -a piece of fine description, of whirling snow across a geologic -landscape, distant, and as dark as eternity; the whole wintry picture -lighted and warmed at the end by a glowing touch of human life: - -"We love the sight of the brown and ruddy earth; it is the color of -life, while a snow-covered plain is the face of death; yet snow is -but the mark of life-giving rain; it, too, is the friend of man--the -tender, sculpturesque, immaculate, warming, fertilizing snow." - -There are many texts in these volumes, many themes; and in them all -there is one real message: that this is a good world to live in; that -these are good men and women to live with; that life is good, here -and now, and altogether worth living. - - - - -III - - -It was in October that I last saw him--at Woodchuck Lodge. November -22 he wrote: - - I neglected to make any apologies for the long letter I wrote - you the other day. I promise not to do so again. I am enclosing - an old notebook of mine, filled with all sorts of jottings as - you will see. I send it for a keepsake. - - We are off for California to-morrow. Hope to be there in early - December. We leave Chicago on the 29th. My address there will - be _La Jolla_, San Diego. Good luck to you and yours. - - Always your friend - - JOHN BURROUGHS - - He kept his promise too too well. This was the last letter I ever had -from him. - -He dreaded that California journey. San Diego is a long, long way -from Woodchuck Lodge when one is nearing eighty-four. Dr. Barrus -and two of her nieces made the trip with him, Henry Ford, out of -his friendship, meeting the expenses of the winter sojourn. But -California had no cure for the winter that had at last fallen upon -the old naturalist. Sickness, and longing for home, and other ills -befell him. He was in a hospital for many days. But visitors came to -see him as usual; he went among the schools speaking; nor was his -pen idle--not yet; one of the last things, if not the very last he -wrote for publication, being a vigorous protest against free verse, -called "The Reds of Literature." But all the while he was thinking of -home, and planning for his birthday party at the Lodge back on the -ancestral farm. - -We celebrated it. He was there. But he did not know. On the third -day of April, his eighty-fourth birthday, followed by a few of his -friends, mourned by all the nation, he was laid to rest in the hill -pasture, beside the boulder on which he had played as a child, and -where only a few months before he had taken me to see the glory of -hill and sky that had been his lifelong theme, and that were to be -his sleep forever. - -He died on the train that was bringing him back from California, his -last desire not quite fulfilled. He was a wholly human man; and an -utterly simple man; and so true to himself, that his last words, -uttered on the speeding train, expressed and completed his whole life -with singular beauty: "How far are we from home," he asked,--and the -light failed; and the train sped on as if there were need of hurry -now! - - "Serene, I fold my hands and wait, - Nor care for wind, nor tide, nor sea, - I rave no more 'gainst Time or Fate - For lo! my own shall come to me." - - -THE END - - - The Riverside Press - - CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS - U . S . 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You may copy it, give it away or -re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included -with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org - - -Title: The Seer of Slabsides - -Author: Dallas Lore Sharp - -Release Date: September 29, 2013 [EBook #43846] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SEER OF SLABSIDES *** - - - - -Produced by Greg Bergquist, Mary Akers and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This -file was produced from images generously made available -by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) - - - - - - -</pre> - +<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 43846 ***</div> <div class="transnote"> <p>Transcriber's note:<br /> @@ -376,7 +338,7 @@ grew with the years, and his directness, his spontaneity, his instant pleasure <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">7</a></span> and his constant joy in living, his utter -naturalness and naïveté amounted to +naturalness and naïveté amounted to genius. They were his genius—and a stumbling-block to many a reader. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Similia similibus curantur</i>, or a thief to catch @@ -1127,7 +1089,7 @@ to the ancient Hebrews, but which the readers of modern nature-writing do greedily devour—are these the things I have seen? And for an answer he sets -about a reëxamination of all he has +about a reëxamination of all he has written, from "Wake-Robin" to "Far and Near," hoping "that the result of the discussion or threshing will not be @@ -1773,382 +1735,6 @@ need of hurry now!</p> <span class="small">CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS<br /> U . S . A</span></p> - - - - - - - -<pre> - - - - - -End of Project Gutenberg's The Seer of Slabsides, by Dallas Lore Sharp - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SEER OF SLABSIDES *** - -***** This file should be named 43846-h.htm or 43846-h.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/4/3/8/4/43846/ - -Produced by Greg Bergquist, Mary Akers and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This -file was produced from images generously made available -by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions -will be renamed. - -Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no -one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation -(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without -permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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