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diff --git a/6561.txt b/6561.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..bb97e89 --- /dev/null +++ b/6561.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6853 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Our Friend John Burroughs, by Clara Barrus + +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: Our Friend John Burroughs + +Author: Clara Barrus + +Release Date: September, 2004 [EBook #6561] +Posting Date: March 28, 2009 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK OUR FRIEND JOHN BURROUGHS *** + + + + +Produced by Joyce M. Noverr + + + + + + + + + +OUR FRIEND JOHN BURROUGHS + +By Clara Barrus + +(Illustration of John Burroughs. From a photograph by Theona Peck +Harris) + + + +CONTENTS + + OUR FRIEND JOHN BURROUGHS + + THE RETREAT OF A POET-NATURALIST + + AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES + ANCESTRY AND FAMILY LIFE + CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH + SELF-ANALYSIS + + THE EARLY WRITINGS OF JOHN BURROUGHS + + A WINTER DAY AT SLABSIDES + + BACK TO PEPACTON + + CAMPINGING WITH BURROUGHS AND MUIR + + JOHN BURROUGHS: AN APPRECIATION + + + + +OUR FRIEND JOHN BURROUGHS + + +We all claim John Burroughs as our friend. He is inextricably blended +with our love for the birds and the flowers, and for all out of doors; +but he is much more to us than a charming writer of books about nature, +and we welcome familiar glimpses of him as one welcomes anything which +brings him in closer touch with a friend. + +A clever essayist, in speaking of the "obituary method of appreciation," +says that we feel a slight sense of impropriety and insecurity in +contemporary plaudits. "Wait till he is well dead, and four or five +decades of daisies have bloomed over him, says the world; then, if +there is any virtue in his works, we will tag and label them and confer +immortality upon him." But Mr. Burroughs has not had to wait till the +daisies cover him to be appreciated. A multitude of his readers has +sought him out and walked amid the daisies with him, listened with him +to the birds, and gained countless delightful associations with all +these things through this personal relation with the author; and +these friends in particular will, I trust, welcome some "contemporary +plaudits." + +As a man, and as a writer, Mr. Burroughs has been in the public eye for +many years. At the age of twenty-three he had an article printed in the +"Atlantic Monthly," and in 1910 that journal celebrated the fiftieth +anniversary of his contributions to its columns. Early in his career he +received marked recognition from able critics, and gratifying responses +from readers. It is rare in the history of an author that his books +after fifty years of writing have the freshness, lucidity, and charm +that Mr. Burroughs's later books have. A critic in 1876 speaks of his +"quiet, believing style, free from passion or the glitter of rhetoric, +and giving one the sense of simple eyesight"; and now, concerning one +of his later books, "Time and Change," Mr. Brander Matthews writes: "In +these pellucid pages--so easy to read because they are the result of +hard thinking--he brings home to us what is the real meaning of the +discoveries and the theories of the scientists.... He brings to bear +his searching scientific curiosity and his sympathetic interpreting +imagination.... All of them models of the essay at its best--easy, +unpedantic, and unfailingly interesting." + +From school-children all over the United States, from nearly every +civilized country on the globe, from homes of the humble and of the +wealthy, from the scholar in his study, from the clergyman, the +lawyer, the physician, the business man, the farmer, the raftsman, the +sportsman, from the invalid shut in from the great outdoors (but, thanks +to our friend, not shut _out_ from outdoor blessings), have come for +many years heartfelt letters attesting the wholesome and widespread +influence of his works. + +President Roosevelt a few years ago, in dedicating one of his books to +"Dear Oom John," voiced the popular feeling: "It is a good thing for our +people that you have lived, and surely no man can wish to have more said +of him." + +Some years ago, the New York "Globe," on announcing a new book by Mr. +Burroughs, said, "It has been the lot of few writers of this country or +of any country to gain such good will and personal esteem as for many +years have been freely given to John Burroughs." If we ask why this is +so, we find it answered by Whitman, who, in conversation with a friend, +said, "John is one of the true hearts--one of the true hearts--warm, +sure, firm." + +Mr. Burroughs has been much visited, much "appreciated," much rhymed +about, much painted, modeled, and photographed, and--much loved. +Because he has been so much loved, and because his influence has been so +far-reaching, it has seemed to me that a book which gives familiar and +intimate glimpses of him will be welcomed by the legion who call him +friend. The exceptional opportunities I have enjoyed for many years past +of observing him encourage me in the undertaking. + +The readers of Mr. Burroughs crave the personal relation with him. Just +as they want to own his books, instead of merely taking them from the +public libraries, so they want to meet the man, take him by the hand, +look into his eyes, hear his voice, and learn, if possible, what it +is that has given him his unfailing joy in life, his serenity, his +comprehensive and loving insight into the life of the universe. They +feel, too, a sense of deep gratitude to one who has shown them how +divine is the soil under foot--veritable star-dust from the gardens of +the Eternal. He has made us feel at one with the whole cosmos, not only +with bird and tree, and rock and flower, but also with the elemental +forces, the powers which are friendly or unfriendly according as we put +ourselves in right or wrong relations with them. He has shown us the +divine in the common and the near at hand; that heaven lies about us +here in this world; that the glorious and the miraculous are not to be +sought afar off, but are here and now; and that love of the earth-mother +is, in the truest sense, love of the divine: "The babe in the womb +is not nearer its mother than are we to the invisible, sustaining, +mothering powers of the universe, and to its spiritual entities, every +moment of our lives." One who speaks thus of the things of such import +to every human soul is bound to win responses; he deals with things that +come home to us all. We want to know him. + +Although retiring in habit, naturally seeking seclusion, Mr. Burroughs +is not allowed overindulgence in this tendency. One may with truth +describe him as a contemporary described Edward FitzGerald--"an +eccentric man of genius who took more pains to avoid fame than others +do to seek it." And yet he is no recluse. When disciples seek out the +hermit in hiding behind the vines at Slabsides, they find a genial +welcome, a simple, homely hospitality; find that the author merits the +Indian name given him by a clever friend--"Man-not-afraid-of-company." + +The simplicity and gentleness of this author and his strong interest in +people endear him to the reader; we feel these qualities in his writings +long before meeting him--a certain urbanity, a tolerant insight and +sympathy, and a quiet humor. These draw us to him. Perhaps after +cherishing his writings for years, cherishing also a confident feeling +that we shall know him some day, we obey a sudden impulse, write to him +about a bird or a flower, ask help concerning a puzzling natural-history +question, tell him what a solace "Waiting" is, what a joy his books have +been; possibly we write some verses to him, or express appreciation +for an essay that has enlarged our vision and opened up a new world of +thought. Perhaps we go to see him at Slabsides, or in the Catskills, as +the case may be; perhaps in some unexpected way he comes to us--stops in +the same town where we live, visits the college where we are studying, +or we encounter him in our travels. In whatever way the personal +relation comes about, we, one and all, share this feeling: he is no +longer merely the favorite author, he is _our friend_ John Burroughs. + +I question whether there is any other modern writer so approachable, or +one we so desire to approach. He has so written himself into his books +that we know him before meeting him; we are charmed with his directness +and genuineness, and eager to claim the companionship his pages seem to +offer. Because of his own unaffected self, our artificialities drop away +when we are with him; we want to be and say and do the genuine, simple +thing; to be our best selves; and one who brings out this in us is sure +to win our love. + +(Illustration of Slabsides. From a photograph by Charles S. Olcott) + +Mr. Burroughs seems to have much in common with Edward FitzGerald; we +may say of him as has been said of the translator of the "Rubaiyat": +"Perhaps some worship is given him... on account of his own refusal of +worship for things unworthy, or even for things merely conventional." +Like FitzGerald, too, our friend is a lover of solitude; like him he +shuns cities, gets his exhilaration from the common life about him; is +inactive, easy-going, a loiterer and saunterer through life; and could +say of himself as FitzGerald said, on describing his own uneventful days +in the country: "Such is life, and I believe I have got hold of a good +end of it." Another point of resemblance: the American dreamer is like +his English brother in his extreme sensitiveness--he cannot bear to +inflict or experience pain. "I lack the heroic fibre," he is wont to +say. FitzGerald acknowledged this also, and, commenting on his own +over-sensitiveness and tendency to melancholy, said, "It is well if the +sensibility that makes us fearful of ourselves is diverted to become +a case of sympathy and interest with nature and mankind." That this +sensibility in Mr. Burroughs has been so diverted, all who are familiar +with his widespread influence on our national life and literature will +agree. + +In a bright descriptive article written a few years ago, Miss Isabel +Moore dispels some preconceived and erroneous notions about Mr. +Burroughs, and shows him as he is--a man keenly alive to the human +nature and life around him. "The boys and girls buzzed about him," she +says, "as bees about some peculiarly delectable blossom. He walked with +them, talked with them, entranced them... the most absolutely human +person I have ever met--a born comrade, if there ever was one; in daily +life a delightful acquaintance as well as a philosopher and poet and +naturalist, and a few other things." She describes him riding with a lot +of young people on a billowy load of hay; going to a ball-game, at which +no boy there enjoyed the contest more, or was better informed as to the +points of the game. "Verily," she says, "he has what Bjornson called +'the child in the heart.'" + +It is the "child in the heart," and, in a way, the "child" in his books, +that accounts for his wide appeal. He often says he can never think of +his books as _works_, because so much play went into the making of them. +He has gone out of doors in a holiday spirit, has had a good time, has +never lost the boy's relish for his outings, and has been so blessed +with the gift of expression that his own delight is communicated to his +reader. + +And always it is the man behind the book that makes the widest appeal. +In 1912, a Western architect, in correspondence with the writer +concerning recent essays of Mr. Burroughs, said:-- + + +I have had much pleasure and soul-help in reading and re-reading "The +Summit of the Years." In this, and in "All's Well with the World," is +mirrored the very soul of the gentlest, the most lovable man-character I +have ever come across in literature or life....To me all his books, from +"Wake-Robin" to "Time and Change," radiate the most joyous optimism.... +During the past month I have devoted my evenings to re-reading +(them).... He has always meant a great deal more to me than merely +intellectual pleasure, and, next to Walt Whitman, has helped me to keep +my life as nearly open to the influences of outdoors and the stars as +may be in a dweller in a large town. + + +As I write, a letter comes from a Kansas youth, now a graduate student +at Yale, expressing the hope that he can see Mr. Burroughs at Slabsides +in April: "There is nothing I want to say--but for a while I would like +to be near him. He is my great good teacher and friend.... As you know, +he is more to me than Harvard or Yale. He is the biggest, simplest, and +serenest man I have met in all the East." + +I suppose there is no literary landmark in America that has had a more +far-reaching influence than Slabsides. Flocks of youths and maidens from +many schools and colleges have, for the past fifteen years, climbed the +hill to the rustic cabin in all the gayety and enthusiasm of their young +lives. But they have seen more than the picturesque retreat of a +living author; they have received a salutary impression made by the +unostentatious life of a man who has made a profound impression on his +day who has made a profound impression on his day and age; they have +gone their separate ways with an awakened sense of the comradeship it +is possible to have with nature, and with an ennobling affection for the +one who has made them aware of it. And this affection goes with them +to whatever place on the globe their destinies carry them. It is +transmitted to their children; it becomes a very real part of their +lives. + +"My dear John Burroughs--Everybody's dear John Burroughs," a friend +writes him from London, recounting her amusing experiences in the study +of English birds. And it is "Everybody's dear John Burroughs" who stands +in the wide doorway at Slabsides and gives his callers a quiet, cordial +welcome. And when the day is ended, and the visitor goes his way down +the hill, he carries in his heart a new treasure--the surety that he has +found a comrade. + +Having had the privilege for the past twelve years of helping Mr. +Burroughs with his correspondence, I have been particularly interested +in the spontaneous responses which have come to him from his young +readers, not only in America, but from Europe, New Zealand, Australia. +Confident of his interest, they are boon companions from the start. They +describe their own environment, give glimpses of the wild life about +them, come to him with their natural-history difficulties; in short, +write as to a friend of whose tolerant sympathy they feel assured. In +fact, this is true of all his correspondents. They get on easy footing +at once. They send him birds, flowers, and insects to identify; +sometimes live animals and birds--skylarks have been sent from England, +which he liberated on the Hudson, hoping to persuade them to become +acclimated; "St. John's Bread," or locust pods, have come to him from +the Holy. Land; pressed flowers and ferns from the Himalayas, from +Africa, from Haleakala. + +Many correspondents are considerate enough not to ask for an answer, +realizing the countless demands of this nature made upon a man like +Mr. Burroughs; others boldly ask, not only for a reply, but for a +photograph, an autograph, his favorite poem written in his own hand, a +list of favorite books, his views on capital punishment, on universal +peace, on immortality; some naively ask for a sketch of his life, or a +character sketch of his wife with details of their home life, and how +they spend their time; a few modestly hope he will write a poem to them +personally, all for their very own. A man of forty-five is tired of the +hardware business, lives in the country, sees Mr. Burroughs's essays +in the "Country Calendar," and asks him to "learn" him to "rite for the +press." + +Some readers take him to task for his opinions, some point out +errors, or too sweeping statements (for he does sometimes make them); +occasionally one suggests other topics for him to write about; others +labor to bring him back into orthodox paths; hundreds write of what +a comfort "Waiting" has been; and there are countless requests for +permission to visit Slabsides, as well as invitations to the homes of +his readers. + +Many send him verses, a few the manuscripts of entire books, asking for +criticism. (And when he does give criticism, he gives it "unsweetened," +being too honest to praise a thing unless in his eyes it merits praise.) +Numerous are the requests that he write introductions to books; that he +address certain women's clubs; that he visit a school, or a nature-study +club, or go from Dan to Beersheba to hold Burroughs Days--each writer, +as a rule, urging his claim as something very special, to which a deaf +ear should not be turned. Not all his correspondents are as considerate +as the little girl who was especially eager to learn his attitude toward +snakes, and who, after writing a pretty letter, ended thus: "Inclosed +you will find a stamp, for I know it must be fearfully expensive and +inconvenient to be a celebrity." + +Occasionally he is a little severe with a correspondent, especially if +one makes a preposterous statement, or draws absurd conclusions from +faulty observations. But he is always fair. The following letter +explains itself:-- + + +Your first note concerning my cat and hog story made me as mad as a +hornet, which my reply showed. Your second note has changed me into a +lamb, as nearly as a fellow of seventy-five can become one.... + +I have read, I think, every book you ever wrote, and do not let any +production of yours escape me; and I have a little pile of framed copies +of your inimitable "My Own" to diffuse among people at Christmas; and +all these your writings make me wonder and shed metaphorical tears to +think that you are such a heretic about reason in animals. But even +Homer nods; and it is said Roosevelt has moments of silence. S. C. B. + + +The questions his readers propound are sometimes very amusing. A +physician of thirty years' practice asks in all seriousness how often +the lions bring forth their young, and whether it is true that there +is a relation between the years in which they breed and the increased +productivity of human beings. One correspondent begs Mr. Burroughs to +tell him how he and his wife and Theodore Roosevelt fold their hands +(as though the last-named ever folded his), declaring he can read their +characters with surprising accuracy if this information is forthcoming. +In this instance, I think, Mr. Burroughs folded his hands serenely, +leaving his correspondent waiting for the valued data. + +The reader will doubtless be interested to see the kind of letter the +children sometimes get from their friend. I am fortunate in having one +written in 1887 to a rhetoric class in Fulton, New York, and one in +1911, written to children in the New York City schools, both of which I +will quote:-- + + +West Park, N. Y., February 21, 1887 + +My Dear Young Friends,-- + +Your teacher Miss Lawrence has presumed that I might have something to +say to a class of boys and girls studying rhetoric, and, what is +more, that I might be disposed to say it. What she tells me about your +interest in my own writings certainly interests me and makes me wish I +might speak a helpful word to you. But let me tell you that very little +conscious rhetoric has gone into the composition of those same writings. + +Valuable as the study of rhetoric undoubtedly is, it can go but a little +way in making you successful writers. I think I have got more help as an +author from going a-fishing than from any textbook or classbook I ever +looked into. Miss Lawrence will not thank me for encouraging you to play +truant, but if you take Bacon's or Emerson's or Arnold's or Cowley's +essays with you and dip into them now and then while you are waiting for +the fish to bite, she will detect some fresh gleam in your composition +when next you hand one in. + +There is no way to learn style so sure as by familiarity with nature, +and by study of the great authors. Shakespeare can teach you all there +is to be learned of the art of expression, and the rhetoric of a live +trout leaping and darting with such ease and sureness cannot well be +beaten. + +What you really have in your heart, what you are in earnest about, how +easy it is to say that! + +Miss Lawrence says you admire my essay on the strawberry. Ah! but I +loved the strawberry--I loved the fields where it grew, I loved the +birds that sang there, and the flowers that bloomed there, and I loved +my mother who sent me forth to gather the berries; I loved all the rural +sights and sounds, I felt near them, so that when, in after years, I +came to write my essay I had only to obey the old adage which sums up +all of the advice which can be given in these matters, "Look in thy +heart and write." + +The same when I wrote about the apple. I had apples in my blood and +bones. I had not ripened them in the haymow and bitten them under the +seat and behind my slate so many times in school for nothing. Every +apple tree I had ever shinned up and dreamed under of a long summer day, +while a boy, helped me to write that paper. The whole life on the farm, +and love of home and of father and mother, helped me to write it. In +writing your compositions, put your rhetoric behind you and tell what +you feel and know, and describe what you have seen. + +All writers come sooner or later to see that the great thing is to be +simple and direct; only thus can you give a vivid sense of reality, and +without a sense of reality the finest writing is mere froth. + +Strive to write sincerely, as you speak when mad, or when in love; not +with the tips of the fingers of your mind, but with the whole hand. + +A noted English historian (Freeman) while visiting Vassar College went +in to hear the rhetoric class. After the exercises were over he said to +the professor, "Why don't you teach your girls to spin a plain yarn?" +I hope Miss Lawrence teaches you to spin a plain yarn. There is nothing +like it. The figures of rhetoric are not paper flowers to be sewed upon +the texture of your composition; they have no value unless they are real +flowers which sprout naturally from your heart. + +What force in the reply of that little Parisian girl I knew of! She +offered some trinkets for sale to a lady on the street. "How much is +this?" asked the lady, taking up some article from the little girl's +basket. "Judge for yourself. Madam, I have tasted no food since +yesterday morning." Under the pressure of any real feeling, even of +hunger, our composition will not lack point. + +I might run on in this way another sheet, but I will stop. I have been +firing at you in the dark,--a boy or a girl at hand is worth several in +the bush, off there in Fulton,--but if any of my words tingle in your +ears and set you to thinking, why you have your teacher to thank for it. + +Very truly yours, John Burroughs. + + +La Manda Park, Cal., February 24, 1911 + +My Dear Young Friends,-- + +A hint has come to me here in southern California, where I have been +spending the winter, that you are planning to celebrate my birthday--my +seventy-fourth this time, and would like a word from me. Let me begin by +saying that I hope that each one of you will at least reach my age, and +be able to spend a winter, or several of them, in southern California, +and get as much pleasure out of it as I have. It is a beautiful land, +with its leagues of orange groves, its stately plains, its park-like +expanses, its bright, clean cities, its picturesque hamlets, and country +homes, and all looked down upon by the high, deeply sculptured mountains +and snow-capped peaks. + +Let me hope also that when you have reached my age you will be as +well and as young as I am. I am still a boy at heart, and enjoy almost +everything that boys do, except making a racket. + +Youth and age have not much to do with years. You are young so long as +you keep your interest in things and relish your daily bread. The world +is "full of a number of things," and they are all very interesting. + +As the years pass I think my interest in this huge globe upon which we +live, and in the life which it holds, deepens. An active interest in +life keeps the currents going and keeps them clear. Mountain streams are +young streams; they sing and sparkle as they go, and our lives may +be the same. With me, the secret of my youth in age is the simple +life--simple food, sound sleep, the open air, daily work, kind thoughts, +love of nature, and joy and contentment in the world in which I live. +No excesses, no alcoholic drinks, no tobacco, no tea or coffee, no +stimulants stronger than water and food. + +I have had a happy life. I have gathered my grapes with the bloom upon +them. May you all do the same. + +With all good wishes, John Burroughs + + +"I have no genius for making gifts," Mr. Burroughs once said to me, +but how his works belie his words! In these letters, and in many others +which his unknown friends have received from him, are gifts of rare +worth, while his life itself has been a benefaction to us all. + +One day in recounting some of the propitious things which have come to +him all unsought, he said: "How fortunate I have always been! My name +should have been 'Felix.'" But since "John" means "the gracious gift of +God," we are content that he was named John Burroughs. + + + + +THE RETREAT OF A POET-NATURALIST + + +We are coming more and more to like the savor of the wild and the +unconventional. Perhaps it is just this savor or suggestion of free +fields and woods, both in his life and in his books, that causes so many +persons to seek out John Burroughs in his retreat among the trees and +rocks on the hills that skirt the western bank of the Hudson. To Mr. +Burroughs more perhaps than to any other living American might be +applied these words in Genesis: "See, the smell of my son is as the +smell of a field which the Lord hath blessed"--so redolent of the soil +and of the hardiness and plenitude of rural things is the influence that +emanates from him. His works are as the raiment of the man, and to them +adheres something as racy and wholesome as is yielded by the fertile +soil. + +We are prone to associate the names of our three most prominent literary +naturalists,--Gilbert White, of England, and Thoreau and John Burroughs, +of America,--men who have been so _en rapport_ with nature that, while +ostensibly only disclosing the charms of their mistress, they have at +the same time subtly communicated much of their own wide knowledge of +nature, and permanently enriched our literature as well. + +In thinking of Gilbert White one invariably thinks also of Selborne, +his open-air parish; in thinking of Thoreau one as naturally recalls +his humble shelter on the banks of Walden Pond; and it is coming to pass +that in thinking of John Burroughs one thinks likewise of his hidden +farm high on the wooded hills that overlook the Hudson, nearly opposite +Poughkeepsie. It is there that he has built himself a picturesque +retreat, a rustic house named Slabsides. I find that, to many, the word +"Slabsides" gives the impression of a dilapidated, ramshackle kind of +place. This impression is an incorrect one. The cabin is a well-built +two-story structure, its uneuphonious but fitting name having been given +it because its outer walls are formed of bark-covered slabs. "My friends +frequently complain," said Mr. Burroughs, "because I have not given my +house a prettier name, but this name just expresses the place, and the +place just meets the want that I felt for something simple, homely, +secluded--something with the bark on." + +Both Gilbert White and Thoreau became identified with their respective +environments almost to the exclusion of other fields. The minute +observations of White, and his records of them, extending over forty +years, were almost entirely confined to the district of Selborne. He +says that he finds that "that district produces the greatest variety +which is the most examined." The thoroughness with which he examined his +own locality is attested by his "Natural History of Selborne." Thoreau +was such a stay-at-home that he refused to go to Paris lest he miss +something of interest in Concord. "I have traveled a good deal in +Concord," he says in his droll way. And one of the most delicious +instances of provinciality that I ever came across is Thoreau's remark +on returning Dr. Kane's "Arctic Explorations" to a friend who had lent +him the book--"Most of the phenomena therein recorded are to be observed +about Concord." In thinking of John Burroughs, however, the thought of +the author's mountain home as the material and heart of his books does +not come so readily to consciousness. For most of us who have felt +the charm, of his lyrical prose, both in his outdoor books and in his +"Indoor Studies," were familiar with him as an author long before we +knew there was a Slabsides--long before there was one, in fact, since +he has been leading his readers to nature for fifty years, while the +picturesque refuge we are now coming to associate with him has been in +existence only about fifteen years. + +Our poet-naturalist seems to have appropriated all outdoors for his +stamping-ground. He has given us in his limpid prose intimate glimpses +of the hills and streams and pastoral farms of his native country; has +taken us down the Pepacton, the stream of his boyhood; we have traversed +with him the "Heart of the Southern Catskills," and the valleys of the +Neversink and the Beaverkill; we have sat upon the banks of the Potomac, +and sailed down the Saguenay; we have had a glimpse of the Blue Grass +region, and "A Taste of Maine Birch" (true, Thoreau gave us this, also, +and other "Excursions" as well); we have walked with him the lanes of +"Mellow England"; journeyed "In the Carlyle Country"; marveled at +the azure glaciers of Alaska; wandered in the perpetual summerland +of Jamaica; camped with him and the Strenuous One in the Yellowstone; +looked in awe and wonder at that "Divine Abyss," the Grand Canon of the +Colorado; felt the "Spell of Yosemite," and idled with him under the +sun-steeped skies of Hawaii and by her morning-glory seas. + +Our essayist is thus seen not to be untraveled, yet he is no wanderer. +No man ever had the home feeling stronger than has he; none is more +completely under the spell of a dear and familiar locality. Somewhere he +has said: "Let a man stick his staff into the ground anywhere and say, +'This is home,' and describe things from that point of view, or as they +stand related to that spot,--the weather, the fauna, the flora,--and +his account shall have an interest to us it could not have if not thus +located and defined." + +(Illustration of Riverby from the Orchard. From a photograph by Charles +S. Olcott) + +Before hunting out Mr. Burroughs in his mountain hermitage, let us +glance at his conventional abode, Riverby, at West Park, Ulster County, +New York. This has been his home since 1874. Having chosen this place +by the river, he built his house of stone quarried from the neighboring +hills, and finished it with the native woods; he planted a vineyard +on the sloping hillside, and there he has successfully combined the +business of grape-culture with his pursuits and achievements as a +literary naturalist. More than half his books have been written since +he has dwelt at Riverby, the earlier ones having appeared when he was a +clerk in the Treasury Department in Washington, an atmosphere supposedly +unfriendly to literary work. It was not until he gave up his work in +Washington, and his later position as bank examiner in the eastern part +of New York State, that he seemed to come into his own. Business life, +he had long known, could never be congenial to him; literary pursuits +alone were insufficient; the long line of yeoman ancestry back of him +cried out for recognition; he felt the need of closer contact with the +soil; of having land to till and cultivate. This need, an ancestral one, +was as imperative as his need of literary expression, an individual +one. Hear what he says after having ploughed in his new vineyard for the +first time: "How I soaked up the sunshine to-day! At night I glowed all +over; my whole being had had an earth bath; such a feeling of freshly +ploughed land in every cell of my brain. The furrow had struck in; the +sunshine had photographed it upon my soul." Later he built him a little +study somewhat apart from his dwelling, to which he could retire and +muse and write whenever the mood impelled him. This little one-room +study, covered with chestnut bark, is on the brow of a hill which slopes +toward the river; it commands an extended view of the Hudson. But +even this did not meet his requirements. The formality and routine of +conventional life palled upon him; the expanse of the Hudson, the noise +of railway and steamboat wearied him; he craved something more +retired, more primitive, more homely. "You cannot have the same kind of +attachment and sympathy for a great river; it does not flow through your +affections like a lesser stream," he says, thinking, no doubt, of the +trout-brooks that thread his father's farm, of Montgomery Hollow Stream, +of the Red Kill, and of others that his boyhood knew. Accordingly +he cast about for some sequestered spot in which to make himself a +hermitage. + +(Illustration of The Study, Riverby. From a photograph by Charles S. +Olcott) + +During his excursions in the vicinity of West Park, Mr. Burroughs had +lingered oftenest in the hills back of, and parallel with, the Hudson, +and here he finally chose the site for his rustic cabin. He had fished +and rowed in Black Pond, sat by its falls in the primitive forest, +sometimes with a book, sometimes with his son, or with some other hunter +or fisher of congenial tastes; and on one memorable day in April, years +agone, he had tarried there with Walt Whitman. There, seated on a +fallen tree, Whitman wrote this description of the place which was later +printed in "Specimen Days":-- + + +I jot this memorandum in a wild scene of woods and hills where we have +come to visit a waterfall. I never saw finer or more copious hemlocks, +many of them large, some old and hoary. Such a sentiment to them, +secretive, shaggy, what I call weather-beaten, and let-alone--a rich +underlay of ferns, yew sprouts and mosses, beginning to be spotted with +the early summer wild flowers. Enveloping all, the monotone and liquid +gurgle from the hoarse, impetuous, copious fall--the greenish-tawny, +darkly transparent waters plunging with velocity down the rocks, with +patches of milk-white foam--a stream of hurrying amber, thirty +feet wide, risen far back in the hills and woods, now rushing with +volume--every hundred rods a fall, and sometimes three or four in that +distance. A primitive forest, druidical, solitary, and savage--not +ten visitors a year--broken rocks everywhere, shade overhead, thick +underfoot with leaves--a just palpable wild and delicate aroma. + + +"Not ten visitors a year" may have been true when Whitman described the +place, but we know it is different now. Troops of Vassar girls come +to visit the hermit of Slabsides, and are taken to these falls; +nature-lovers, and those who only think themselves nature-lovers, come +from far and near; Burroughs clubs, boys' schools, girls' schools, +pedestrians, cyclists, artists, authors, reporters, poets,--young and +old, renowned and obscure,--from April till November seek out this lover +of nature, who is a lover of human nature as well, who gives himself and +his time generously to those who find him. When the friends of Socrates +asked him where they should bury him, he said: "You may bury me if you +can _find_ me." Not all who seek John Burroughs really find him; he does +not mix well with every newcomer; one must either have something of Mr. +Burroughs's own cast of mind, or else be of a temperament capable of +genuine sympathy with him, in order to find the real man. He withdraws +into his shell before persons of uncongenial temperament; to such he can +never really speak--they see Slabsides, but they don't see Burroughs. He +is, however, never curt or discourteous to any one. Unlike Thoreau, who +"put the whole of nature between himself and his fellows," Mr. Burroughs +leads his fellows to nature, although it is sometimes, doubtless, with +the feeling that one can lead a horse to water, but can't make him +drink; for of all the sightseers that journey to Slabsides there must of +necessity be many that "Oh!" and "Ah!" a good deal, but never really get +further in their study of nature than that. Still, it can scarcely fail +to be salutary even to these to get away from the noise and the strife +in city and town, and see how sane, simple, and wholesome life is when +lived in a sane and simple and wholesome way. Somehow it helps one +to get a clearer sense of the relative value of things, it makes +one ashamed of his petty pottering over trifles, to witness this +exemplification of the plain living and high thinking which so many +preach about, and so few practice. + +"The thing which a man's nature calls him to do--what else so well worth +doing?" asks this writer. One's first impression after glancing about +this well-built cabin, with the necessities of body and soul close at +hand, is a vicarious satisfaction that here, at least, is one who has +known what he wanted to do and has done it. We are glad that Gilbert +White made pastoral calls on his outdoor parishioners,--the birds, the +toads, the turtles, the snails, and the earthworms,--although we +often wonder if he evinced a like conscientiousness toward his human +parishioners; we are glad that Thoreau left the manufacture of lead +pencils to become, as Emerson jocosely complained, "the leader of a +huckleberry party",--glad because these were the things their natures +called them to do, and in so doing they best enriched their fellows. +They literally went away that they might come to us in a closer, truer +way than had they tarried in our midst. It must have been in answer to +a similar imperative need of his own that John Burroughs chose to hie +himself to the secluded yet accessible spot where his mountain cabin is +built. + +"As the bird feathers her nest with down plucked from her own breast," +says Mr. Burroughs in one of his early essays, "so one's spirit must +shed itself upon its environment before it can brood and be at all +content." Here at Slabsides one feels that its master does brood and +is content. It is an ideal location for a man of his temperament; it +affords him the peace and seclusion he desires, yet is not so remote +that he is shut off from human fellowship. For he is no recluse; his +sympathies are broad and deep. Unlike Thoreau, who asserts that "you +cannot have a deep sympathy with both man and nature," and that "those +qualities that bring you near to the one estrange you from the other," +Mr. Burroughs likes his kind; he is doubtless the most accessible of all +notable American writers,--a fact which is perhaps a drawback to him in +his literary work, his submission to being hunted out often being +taken advantage of, no doubt, by persons who are in no real sense +nature-lovers, but who go to his retreat merely to see the hermit in +hiding there. + +After twelve years' acquaintance with his books I yielded to the +impulse, often felt before, to tell Mr. Burroughs what a joy his +writings had been to me. In answering my letter he said: "The genuine +responses that come to an author from his unknown readers, judging +from my own experience, are always very welcome. It is no intrusion but +rather an inspiration." A gracious invitation to make him a visit came +later. + +The visit was made in the "month of tall weeds," in September, 1901. +Arriving at West Park, the little station on the West Shore Railway, +I found Mr. Burroughs in waiting. The day was gray and somewhat +forbidding; not so the author's greeting; his almost instant recognition +and his quiet welcome made me feel that I had always known him. It was +like going home to hear him say quietly, "So you are here--really here," +as he took my hand. The feeling of comradeship that I had experienced +in reading his books was realized in his presence. With market-basket +on arm, he started off at a brisk pace along the country road, first +looking to see if I was well shod, as he warned me that it was quite a +climb to Slabsides. + +His kindly face was framed with snowy hair. He was dressed in +olive-brown clothes, and "his old experienced coat" blended in color +with the tree-trunks and the soil with which one felt sure it had often +been in close communion. + +We soon left the country road and struck into a woodland path, going +up through quiet, cathedral-like woods till we came to an abrupt rocky +stairway which my companion climbed with ease and agility despite his +five-and-sixty years. + +I paused to examine some mushrooms, and, finding a species that I +knew to be edible, began nibbling it. "Don't taste that," he said +imperatively; but I laughed and nibbled away. With a mingling of anxiety +and curiosity he inquired: "Are you sure it's all right? Do you really +like them? I never could; they are so uncanny--the gnomes or evil genii +or hobgoblins of the vegetable world--give them a wide berth." + +He pointed to a rock in the distance where he said he sometimes sat and +sulked. "_You_ sulk, and own up to it, too?" I asked. "Yes, and own up +to it, too. Why not? Don't you?" + +"Are there any bee-trees around here?" I questioned, remembering that +in one of his essays he has said: "If you would know the delight of +bee-hunting, and how many sweets such a trip yields besides honey, come +with me some bright, warm, late September or early October day. It is +the golden season of the year, and any errand or pursuit that takes +us abroad upon the hills, or by the painted woods and along the +amber-colored streams at such a time is enough." Here was a September +day if not a bright one, and here were the painted woods, and somehow I +felt half aggrieved that he did not immediately propose going in quest +of wild honey. Instead he only replied: "I don't know whether there are +bee-trees around here now or not. I used to find a good deal of wild +honey over at a place that I spoke of casually as Mount Hymettus, and +was much surprised later to find they had so put it down on the maps of +this region. Wild honey is delectable, but I pursued that subject till +I sucked it dry. I haven't done much about it these later years." So +we are not to gather wild honey, I find; but what of that?--am I not +actually walking in the woods with John Burroughs? + +Up, up we climb, an ascent of about a mile and a quarter from the +railway station. Emerging from the woods, we come rather suddenly upon a +reclaimed rock-girt swamp, the most of which is marked off in long green +lines of celery. This swamp was formerly a lake-bottom; its rich black +soil and three perennial springs near by decided Mr. Burroughs to drain +and reclaim the soil and compel it to yield celery and other garden +produce. + +Nestling under gray rocks, on the edge of the celery garden, embowered +in forest trees, is the vine-covered cabin, Slabsides. What a feeling +of peace and aloofness comes over one in looking up at the encircling +hills! The few houses scattered about on other rocks are at a just +comfortable distance to be neighborly, but not too neighborly. Would one +be lonesome here? Aye, lonesome, but-- + + "Not melancholy,--no, for it is green + And bright and fertile, furnished in itself + With the few needful things that life requires; + In rugged arms how soft it seems to lie, + How tenderly protected!" + +Mr. Burroughs has given to those who contemplate building a house some +sound advice in his essay "Roof-Tree." There he has said that a man +makes public proclamation of what are his tastes and his manners, or +his want of them, when he builds his house; that if we can only keep our +pride and vanity in abeyance and forget that all the world is looking +on, we may be reasonably sure of having beautiful houses. Tried by his +own test, he has no reason to be ashamed of his taste or his manners +when Slabsides is critically examined. Blending with its surroundings, +it is coarse, strong, and substantial without; within it is snug and +comfortable; its wide door bespeaks hospitality; its low, broad +roof, protection and shelter; its capacious hearth, cheer; all its +appointments for the bodily needs express simplicity and frugality; and +its books and magazines, and the conversation of the host--are they not +there for the needs that bread alone will not supply? + +"Mr. Burroughs, why don't you PAINT things?" asked a little boy of four, +who had been spending a happy day at Slabsides, but who, at nightfall, +while nestling in the author's arms, seemed suddenly to realize that +this rustic house was very different from anything he had seen before. +"I don't like things painted, my little man; that is just why I came up +here--to get away from paint and polish--just as you liked to wear your +overalls to-day and play on the grass, instead of keeping on that pretty +dress your mother wanted you to keep clean." "Oh!" said the child in +such a knowing tone that one felt he understood. But that is another +story. + +The time of which I am speaking--that gray September day--what a +memorable day it was! How cheery the large, low room looked when the +host replenished the smouldering fire! "I sometimes come up here even +in winter, build a fire, and stay for an hour or more, with long, sad, +sweet thoughts and musings," he said. He is justly proud of the huge +stone fireplace and chimney which he himself helped to construct; he +also helped to hew the trees and build the house. "What joy went into +the building of this retreat! I never expect to be so well content +again." Then, musing, he added: "It is a comfortable, indolent life I +lead here; I read a little, write a little, and dream a good deal. +Here the sun does not rise so early as it does down at Riverby. 'Tired +nature's sweet restorer' is not put to rout so soon by the screaming +whistles, the thundering trains, and the necessary rules and regulations +of well-ordered domestic machinery. Here I really 'loaf and invite my +soul.' Yes, I am often melancholy, and hungry for companionship--not in +the summer months, no, but in the quiet evenings before the fire, with +only Silly Sally to share my long, long thoughts; she is very attentive, +but I doubt if she notices when I sigh. She doesn't even heed me when I +tell her that ornithology is a first-rate pursuit for men, but a bad one +for cats. I suspect that she studies the birds with greater care than +I do; for now I can get all I want of a bird and let him remain in the +bush, but Silly Sally is a thorough-going ornithologist; she must engage +in all the feather-splittings that the ornithologists do, and she isn't +satisfied until she has thoroughly dissected and digested her material, +and has all the dry bones of the subject laid bare." + +We sat before the fire while Mr. Burroughs talked of nature, of books, +of men and women whose lives or books, or both, have closely touched his +own. He talked chiefly of Emerson and Whitman, the men to whom he seems +to owe the most, the two whom most his soul has loved. + +"I remember the first time I saw Emerson," he said musingly; "it was at +West Point during the June examinations of the cadets. Emerson had been +appointed by President Lincoln as one of the board of visitors. I had +been around there in the afternoon, and had been peculiarly interested +in a man whose striking face and manner challenged my attention. I did +not hear him speak, but watched him going about with a silk hat, +much too large, pushed back on his head; his sharp eyes peering into +everything, curious about everything. 'Here,' said I to myself, 'is a +countryman who has got away from home, and intends to see all that is +going on'--such an alert, interested air! That evening a friend came to +me and in a voice full of awe and enthusiasm said, 'Emerson is in town!' +Then I knew who the alert, sharp-eyed stranger was. We went to the +meeting and met our hero, and the next day walked and talked with him. +He seemed glad to get away from those old fogies and talk with us young +men. I carried his valise to the boat-landing--I was in the seventh +heaven of delight." + +"I saw him several years later," he continued, "soon after 'Wake-Robin' +was published; he mentioned it and said: 'Capital title, capital!' I +don't suppose he had read much besides the title." + +"The last time I saw him," he said with a sigh, "was at Holmes's +seventieth-birthday breakfast, in Boston. But then his mind was like a +splendid bridge with one span missing; he had--what is it you doctors +call it?--_aphasia_, yes, that is it--he had to grope for his words. But +what a serene, godlike air! He was like a plucked eagle tarrying in the +midst of a group of lesser birds. He would sweep the assembly with +that searching glance, as much as to say, 'What is all this buzzing +and chirping about?' Holmes was as brilliant and scintillating as ever; +sparks of wit would greet every newcomer, flying out as the sparks fly +from that log. Whittier was there, too, looking nervous and uneasy and +very much out of his element. But he stood next to Emerson, prompting +his memory and supplying the words his voice refused to utter. When +I was presented, Emerson said in a slow, questioning way, +'Burroughs--Burroughs?' 'Why, thee knows _him_,' said Whittier, jogging +his memory with some further explanation; but I doubt if he then +remembered anything about me." + +It was not such a leap from the New England writers to Whitman as one +might imagine. Mr. Burroughs spoke of Emerson's prompt and generous +indorsement of the first edition of "Leaves of Grass": "I give you joy +of your free, brave thought. I have great joy in it." This and much else +Emerson had written in a letter to Whitman. "It is the charter of an +emperor!" Dana had said when Whitman showed him the letter. The poet's +head was undoubtedly a little turned by praise from such a source, +and much to Emerson's annoyance, the letter was published in the next +edition of the "Leaves." Still Emerson and Whitman remained friends to +the last. + +"Whitman was a child of the sea," said Mr. Burroughs; "nurtured by the +sea, cradled by the sea; he gave one the same sense of invigoration and +of illimitableness that we get from the sea. He never looked so much at +home as when on the shore--his gray clothes, gray hair, and far-seeing +blue-gray eyes blending with the surroundings. And his thoughts--the +same broad sweep, the elemental force and grandeur and all-embracingness +of the impartial sea!" + +"Whitman never hurried," Mr. Burroughs continued; "he always seemed to +have infinite time at his disposal." It brought Whitman very near to +hear Mr. Burroughs say, "He used to take Sunday breakfasts with us in +Washington. Mrs. Burroughs makes capital pancakes, and Walt was very +fond of them; but he was always late to breakfast. The coffee would boil +over, the griddle would smoke, car after car would go jingling by, +and no Walt. Sometimes it got to be a little trying to have domestic +arrangements so interfered with; but a car would stop at last, Walt +would roll off it, and saunter up to the door--cheery, vigorous, serene, +putting every one in good humor. And how he ate! He radiated health +and hopefulness. This is what made his work among the sick soldiers in +Washington of such inestimable value. Every one that came into personal +relations with him felt his rare compelling charm." + +It was all very well, this talk about the poets, but climbing +"break-neck stairs" on our way thither had given the guest an appetite, +and the host as well; and these appetites had to be appeased by +something less transcendental than a feast of reason. Scarcely +interrupting his engaging monologue, Mr. Burroughs went about +his preparations for dinner, doing things deftly and quietly, all +unconscious that there was anything peculiar in this sight to the +spectator. Potatoes and onions were brought in with the earth still on +them, their bed was made under the ashes, and we sat down to more talk. +After a while he took a chicken from the market-basket, spread it on a +toaster, and broiled it over the coals; he put the dishes on the hearth +to warm, washed the celery, parched some grated corn over the coals +while the chicken was broiling, talking the while of Tolstoy and of +Maeterlinck, of orioles and vireos, of whatever we happened to touch +upon. He avowed that he was envious of Maeterlinck on account of his +poetic "Life of the Bee." "I ought to have written that," he said; "I +know the bee well enough, but I could never do anything so exquisite." + +Parts of Maeterlinck's "Treasures of the Humble," and "Wisdom and +Destiny," he "couldn't stand." I timorously mentioned his chapter on +"Silence." + +"'Silence'? Oh, yes; silence is very well--some kinds of it; but _why +make such a noise about silence_?" he asked with a twinkle in his eyes. + +When the chicken was nearly ready, I moved toward the dining-table, +on which some dishes were piled. As though in answer to my thought, he +said: + +"Yes, if there's anything you can do there, you may." So I began +arranging the table. + +"Where are _my_ knife and fork?" "In the cupboard," he answered without +ceremony. + +We brought the good things from the hearth, hot and delicious, and +sat down to a dinner that would have done credit to an Adirondack +guide,--and when one has said this, what more need one say? + +In helping myself to the celery I took an outside piece. Mine host +reached over and, putting a big white centre of celery on my plate, +said: "What's the use taking the outside of things when one can have the +heart?" This is typical of John Burroughs's life as well as his art--he +has let extraneous things, conventionalities, and non-essentials go; has +gone to the heart of things. It is this that has made his work so vital. + +As we arose from the table, I began picking up the dishes. + +"You are going to help, are you?" + +"Of course," I replied; "where is your dish-cloth? "--a natural +question, as any woman will agree, but what a consternation it evoked! +A just perceptible delay, a fumbling among pots and pans, and he came +toward me with a most apologetic air, and with the sorriest-looking rag +I had ever seen--its narrow circumference encircling a very big hole. + +"Is _that_ the best dish-cloth you have?" I asked. + +For answer he held it up in front of his face, but the most of it +being hole, it did not hide the eyes that twinkled so merrily that my +housewifely reproof was effectually silenced. I took the sorry remnant +and began washing the dishes, mentally resolving, and carrying out my +resolution the next day, to send him a respectable dish-cloth. Prosaic, +if you will, but does not his own Emerson say something about giving-- + + "to barrows, trays, and pans, + Grace and glimmer of romance"? + +And what graces a dish-pan better than a clean, whole, self-respecting +dish-cloth? + +So there we stood, John Burroughs and his humble reader, washing and +wiping dishes, and weighing Amiel and Schopenhauer in the balance at the +same time; and a very novel and amusing experience it was. Yet it did +not seem so strange after all, but almost as though it had happened +before. Silly Sally purred beseechingly as she followed her master about +the room and out to the wood-pile, reminding him that she liked chicken +bones. + +While putting the bread in the large tin box that stood on the +stair-landing, I had some difficulty with the clasp. "Never mind that," +said Mr. Burroughs, as he scraped the potato skins into the fire; "a +Vassar girl sat down on that box last summer, and it's never been the +same since." + +The work finished, there was more talk before the fire. It was here +that the author told his guest about Anne Gilchrist, the talented, +noble-hearted Englishwoman, whose ready acceptance of Whitman's message +bore fruit in her penetrating criticism of Whitman, a criticism which +stands to-day unrivaled by anything that has been written concerning the +Good Gray Poet. + +Like most of Mr. Burroughs' readers, I cherish his poem "Waiting," and, +like most of them, I told him so on seeing him seated before the fire +with folded hands and face serene, a living embodiment of the faith and +trust expressed in those familiar lines. It would seem natural that +he should write such a poem after the heat of the day, after his ripe +experience, after success had come to him; it is the lesson we expect +one to learn on reaching his age, and learning how futile is the fret +and urge of life, how infinitely better is the attitude of trust that +what is our own will gravitate to us in obedience to eternal laws. But +I there learned that he had written the poem when a young man, life +all before him, his prospects in a dubious and chaotic condition, his +aspirations seeming likely to come to naught. + +"I have lived to prove it true," he said,--"that which I but vaguely +divined when I wrote the lines. Our lives are all so fearfully and +wonderfully shot through with the very warp and woof of the universe, +past, present, and to come! No doubt at all that our own--that which +our souls crave and need--does gravitate toward us, or we toward it. +'Waiting' has been successful," he added, "not on account of its poetic +merit, but for some other merit or quality. It puts in simple and happy +form some common religious aspirations, without using the religious +jargon. People write me from all parts of the country that they treasure +it in their hearts; that it steadies their hand at the helm; that it +is full of consolation for them. It is because it is poetry allied +with religion that it has this effect; poetry alone would not do this; +neither would a prose expression of the same religious aspirations do +it, for we often outgrow the religious views and feelings of the past. +The religious thrill, the sense of the Infinite, the awe and majesty of +the universe, are no doubt permanent in the race, but the expression of +these feelings in creeds and forms addressed to the understanding, +or exposed to the analysis of the understanding, is as transient and +flitting as the leaves of the trees. My little poem is vague enough to +escape the reason, sincere enough to go to the heart, and poetic enough +to stir the imagination." + +The power of accurate observation, of dispassionate analysis, of keen +discrimination and insight that we his readers are familiar with in his +writings about nature, books, men, and life in general, is here seen to +extend to self-analysis as well,--a rare gift; a power that makes his +opinions carry conviction. We feel he is not intent on upholding any +theory, but only on seeing things as they are, and reporting them as +they are. + +A steady rain had set in early in the afternoon, effectually drowning +my hopes of a longer wood-land walk that day, but I was then, and many +a time since then have been, well content that it was so. I learned less +of woodland lore, but more of the woodland philosopher. + +In quiet converse passed the hours of that memorable day in the humble +retreat on the wooded hills,-- + + "Far from the clank of the world,"-- + +and in the company of the poet-naturalist. So cordial had my host been, +so gracious the admission to his home and hospitality, that I left the +little refuge with a feeling of enrichment I shall cherish while life +lasts. I had sought out a favorite author; I had gained a friend. + + + + +AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES + + +(In response to my request, Mr. Burroughs began in 1903 to write for me +a series of letters, autobiographical in character. It is from them, for +the most part, helped out by interviews to fill in the gaps, that I +have compiled this part of the book. The letters were not written +continuously; begun in 1903, they suffered a long interruption, were +resumed in 1906, again in 1907, and lastly in 1912. The reader will, I +trust, pardon any repetition noted, an occasional return to a subject +previously touched upon being unavoidable because of the long intervals +between some of the letters. + +It seems to me that these letters picture our author more faithfully +than could any portrait drawn by another. Thomas Bailey Aldrich has said +that no man has ever yet succeeded in painting an honest portrait of +himself in an autobiography, however sedulously he may have set about +it; that in spite of his candid purpose he omits necessary touches and +adds superfluous ones; that at times he cannot help draping his thought, +and that, of course, the least shred of drapery is a disguise. But, +Aldrich to the contrary notwithstanding, I believe Mr. Burroughs has +pictured himself and his environment in these pages with the same +fidelity with which he has interpreted nature. He is so used to +"straight seeing and straight thinking" that these gifts do not desert +him when his observation is turned upon himself. He seems to be a +shining example of the exception that proves the rule. Besides, when +Aldrich pronounced that dictum, Mr. Burroughs had not produced these +sketches. + +This record was not written with the intention of its being published as +it stood, but merely to acquaint me with the facts and with the author's +feelings concerning them, in case I should some day undertake his +biography. But it seems to me that just because it was so written, it +has a value which would be considerably lessened were it to be worked +over into a more finished form. I have been willing to sacrifice the +more purely literary value which would undoubtedly grace the record, +were the author to revise it, that I may retain its homely, unstudied +human value. + +I have arranged the autobiographical material under three headings: +Ancestry and Family Life, Childhood and Youth, and Self-Analysis.--C. +B.) + + + + +ANCESTRY AND FAMILY LIFE + + +I am, as you know, the son of a farmer. My father was the son of a +farmer, as was his father, and his. There is no break, so far as I know, +in the line of farmers back into the seventeenth century. There was a +Rev. George Burroughs who was hanged (in 1692) for a witch in Salem. He +was a Harvard graduate. I know of no other Harvard graduate by our name +until Julian (Mr. Burroughs's son) graduated in 1901 from Harvard. My +father's cousin, the Rev. John C. Burroughs, the first president of +Chicago University, was graduated from Yale sometime in the early +forties. + +The first John Burroughs of whom I have any trace came from the West +Indies, and settled in Stratford, Connecticut, where he married in 1694. +He had ten children, of whom the seventh was John, born in August, 1705. +My descent does not come from this John, but from his eldest brother, +Stephen, who was born at Stratford in February, 1695. Stephen had eight +children, and here another John turns up--his last child, born in 1745. +His third child, Stephen Burroughs (born in 1729), was a shipbuilder and +became a noted mathematician and astronomer, and lived at Bridgeport, +Connecticut. My descent is through Stephen's seventh child, Ephraim, +born in 1740. + +Ephraim, my great-grandfather, also had a large family, six sons and +several daughters, of which my grandfather Eden was one. He was born in +Stratford, about 1770. My great-grandfather Ephraim left Stratford near +the beginning of the Revolution and came into New York State, first into +Dutchess County, when Grandfather was a small boy, and finally settled +in what is now the town of Stamford, Delaware County, where he died in +1818. He is buried in a field between Hobart and Stamford. + +My grandfather Eden married Rachael Avery, and shortly afterward moved +over the mountain to the town of Roxbury, cutting a road through the +woods and bringing his wife and all their goods and chattels on a sled +drawn by a yoke of oxen. This must have been not far from the year 1795. +He cleared the land and built a log house with a black-ash bark roof, +and a great stone chimney, and a floor of hewn logs. Grandmother said it +was the happiest day of her life when she found herself the mistress of +this little house in the woods. Great-grandmother Avery lived with +them later. She had a petulant disposition. One day when reproved for +something, she went off and hid herself in the bushes and sulked--a +family trait; I'm a little that way, I guess. + +Grandfather Burroughs was religious,--an Old-School Baptist,--a +thoughtful, quiet, exemplary man who read his Bible much. He was of +spare build, serious, thrifty after the manner of pioneers, and a kind +husband and father. He died, probably of apoplexy, when I was four years +old. I can dimly remember him. He was about seventy-two. + +Grandmother Burroughs had sandy hair and a freckled face, and from her +my father and his sister Abby got their red hair. From this source I +doubtless get some of my Celtic blood. Grand-mother Burroughs had nine +children; the earliest ones died in infancy; their graves are on +the hill in the old burying-ground. Two boys and five girls +survived--Phoebe, Betsy, Mary, Abby, Olly, Chauncey (my father), and +Hiram. + +I do not remember Grandmother at all. She died, I think, in 1838, of +consumption; she was in the seventies. Father said her last words were, +"Chauncey, I have but a little while to live." Her daughter Oily and +also my sister Oily died of consumption. Grandmother used to work with +Grandfather in the fields, and help make sugar. I have heard them tell +how in 1812 they raised wheat which sold for $2.50 a bushel--a great +thing. + +Father told me of his uncle, Chauncey Avery, brother of Grandmother +Burroughs, who, with his wife and seven children, was drowned near +Shandaken, by a flood in the Esopus Creek, in April, 1814, or 1816. The +creek rose rapidly in the night; retreat was cut off in the morning. +They got on the roof and held family prayers. Uncle Chauncey tried to +fell a tree and make a bridge, but the water drove him away. The house +was finally carried away with most of the family in it. The father +swam to a stump with one boy on his back and stood there till the water +carried away the stump, then tried to swim with the boy for shore, but +the driftwood soon engulfed him and all was over. Two of the bodies were +never found. Their bones doubtless rest somewhere in the still waters of +the lower Esopus. + + +(Here follow details concerning one paternal and one maternal aunt, +which, though picturesque, would better be omitted. It is to be noted, +however, that in this simple homely narrative of his ancestors (which, +by the way, gives a vivid picture of the early pioneer days) and later +in his own personal history, there is no attempt to conceal or +gloss over weaknesses or shortcomings; all is set down with engaging +candor.--C. B.) + + +Father's sister Abby married a maternal cousin, John Kelly. He was of +a scholarly turn. He worked for Father the year I was born, and I was +named after him. I visited him in Pennsylvania in 1873, and while there, +when he was talking with me about the men of our family named John +Burroughs, he said, "One was a minister in the West, one was Uncle +Hiram's son, you are the third, and there is still another I have heard +of,--a writer." And I was silly enough not to tell him that I was that +one. After I reached home, some of my people sent him "Winter Sunshine," +and when he found that I was its author, he wrote that he "set great +store by it." I don't know why I should have been so reticent about my +books--they were a foreign thing, I suppose; it was not natural to speak +of them among my kinsfolk. + + +(In this connection let me quote from an early letter of Mr. Burroughs +to me. It was written in 1901 after the death of his favorite sister: +"She was very dear to me, and I had no better friend. More than the rest +of my people she aspired to understand and appreciate me, and with a +measure of success. My family are plain, unlettered farmer folk, and the +world in which you and I live iss a sealed book to them. The have never +read my books. What they value in me is what I have in common with them, +which is, no doubt, the larger part of me. But I love them all just the +same. They are a part of father and mother, of the old home, and of my +youthful days."--C. B.) + + +Mother's father. Grandfather Kelly, was a soldier of 1776, of Irish +descent, born in Connecticut, I think. His name was Edmund Kelly. He +went into the war as a boy and saw Washington and La Fayette. He was at +Valley Forge during that terrible winter the army spent there. One +day Washington gave the order to the soldiers to dress-parade for +inspection; some had good clothes, some scarcely any, and no shoes. He +made all the well-dressed men go and cut wood for the rest, and excused +the others. + +Grandfather was a small man with a big head and quite pronounced Irish +features. He was a dreamer. He was not a good provider; Grandmother did +most of the providing. He wore a military coat with brass buttons, and +red-top boots. He believed in spooks and witches, and used to tell us +spook stories till our hair would stand on end. + +He was an expert trout fisherman. Early in the morning I would dig +worms for bait, and we would go fishing over in West Settlement, or in +Montgomery Hollow. I went fishing with him when he was past eighty. +He would steal along the streams and "snake" out the trout, walking as +briskly as I do now. From him I get my dreamy, lazy, shirking ways. + +In 1848 he and Grandmother came to live near us. He had a severe fit of +illness that year. I remember we caught a fat coon for him. He was +fond of game. I was there one morning when they entertained a colored +minister overnight, probably a fugitive slave. He prayed--how lustily he +prayed! + +I have heard Grandfather tell how, when he was a boy in Connecticut, he +once put his hand in a bluebird's nest and felt, as he said, "something +comical"; he drew out his hand, which was followed by the head and neck +of a black snake; he took to his heels, and the black snake after him. +(I rather think that's a myth.) He said his uncle, who was ploughing, +came after the black snake with a whip, and the snake slunk away. He +thought he remembered that. It may be a black snake might pursue one, +but I doubt it. + + +(Mr. Burroughs's ingrained tendency to question reports of improbable +things in nature shows even in these reminiscences of his grandfather. +His instinct for the truth is always on the qui vive.--C. B.) + + +Grandmother Kelly lived to be past eighty. She was a big woman--thrifty +and domestic--big enough to take "Granther" up in her arms and walk +off with him. She did more to bring up her family than he did; was a +practical housewife, and prolific. She had ten children and made every +one of them toe the mark. I don't know whether she ever took "Granther" +across her knee or not, but he probably deserved it. She was quite +uneducated. Her maiden name was Lavinia Minot. I don't know where her +people came from, or whether she had any brothers and sisters. They +lived in Red Kill mostly, in the eastern part of the town of Roxbury, +and also over on the edge of Greene County. I remember, when Grandfather +used to tell stories of cruelty in the army, and of the hardships of the +soldiers, she would wriggle and get very angry. All her children were +large. They were as follows: Sukie, Ezekiel, Charles, Martin, Edmund, +William, Thomas, Hannah, Abby, and Amy (my mother). Aunt Sukie was a +short, chubby woman, always laughing. Uncle Charles was a man of strong +Irish features, like Grandfather. He was a farmer who lived in Genesee +County. Uncle Martin was a farmer of fair intelligence; Ezekiel was +lower in the scale than the others; was intemperate, and after losing +his farm became a day-laborer. He would carry a gin-bottle into the +fields, and would mow the stones as readily as he would the grass--and +I had to turn the grindstone to sharpen his scythe. Uncle Edmund was a +farmer and a pettifogger. Uncle William died comparatively young; he +had nurseries near Rochester. Uncle Thomas was a farmer, slow and canny, +with a quiet, dry humor. Aunt Hannah married Robert Avery, who drank a +good deal; I can't remember anything about her. Aunt Abby was large and +thrifty; she married John Jenkins, and had a large family.... Amy, my +mother, was her mother's tenth child. + +Mother was born in Rensselaer County near Albany, in 1808. Her father +moved to Delaware County when she was a child, driving there with an +ox-team. Mother "worked out" in her early teens. She was seventeen or +eighteen when she married, February, 1827. + +Father and Mother first went to keeping house on Grandfather Burroughs's +old place--not in the log house, but in the frame house of which you saw +the foundations. Brother Hiram was born there. + + +(Mr. Burroughs's last walk with his father was to the crumbling +foundations of this house. I have heard him tell how his father stood +and pointed out the location of the various rooms--the room where they +slept the first night they went there; the one where the eldest child +was born; that in which his mother died. I stood (one August day +in 1902) with Mr. Burroughs on the still remaining joists of his +grandfather's house--grass-grown, and with the debris of stones and +beams mingling with weeds and bushes. He pointed out to me, as his +father had done for him, the location of the various rooms, and mused +upon the scenes enacted there; he showed where the paths led to the barn +and to the spring, and seemed to take a melancholy interest in picturing +the lives of his parents and grandparents. A sudden burst of gladness +from a song sparrow, and his musings gave way to attentive pleasure, and +the sunlit Present claimed him instead of the shadowy Past. He was soon +rejoicing in the discovery of a junco's nest near the foundations of the +old house.--C.B.) + + +My father, Chauncey Burroughs, was born December 20, 1803. He received a +fair schooling for those times--the three R's--and taught school one or +two winters. His reading was the Bible and hymn-book, his weekly secular +paper, and a monthly religious paper. + +He used to say that as a boy he was a very mean one, saucy, quarrelsome, +and wicked, liked horse-racing and card-playing--both alike disreputable +in those times. In early manhood he "experienced religion" and joined +the Old-School Baptist Church, of which his parents were members, and +then all his bad habits seem to have been discarded. He stopped swearing +and Sabbath-breaking, and other forms of wickedness, and became an +exemplary member of the community. He was a man of unimpeachable +veracity; bigoted and intolerant in his religious and political views, +but a good neighbor, a kind father, a worthy citizen, a fond husband, +and a consistent member of his church. He improved his farm, paid his +debts, and kept his faith. He had no sentiment about things and was +quite unconscious of the beauties of nature over which we make such an +ado. "The primrose by the river's brim" would not have been seen by him +at all. This is true of most farmers; the plough and the hoe and the +scythe do not develop their aesthetic sensibilities; then, too, in the +old religious view the beauties of this world were vain and foolish. + +I have said that my father had strong religious feeling. He took "The +Signs of the Times" for over forty years, reading all those experiences +with the deepest emotion. I remember when a mere lad hearing him pray in +the hog-pen. It was a time of unusual religious excitement with him, no +doubt; I heard, and ran away, knowing it was not for me to hear. + +Father had red hair, and a ruddy, freckled face. He was tender-hearted +and tearful, but with blustering ways and a harsh, strident voice. +Easily moved to emotion, he was as transparent as a child, with a +child's lack of self-consciousness. Unsophisticated, he had no art to +conceal anything, no guile, and, as Mother used to say, no manners. "All +I ever had," Father would rejoin, "for I've never used any of them." I +doubt if he ever said "Thank you" in his life; I certainly never heard +him. He had nothing to conceal, and could not understand that others +might have. I have heard him ask people what certain things cost, men +their politics, women their ages, with the utmost ingenuousness. One day +when he and I were in Poughkeepsie, we met a strange lad on the street +with very red hair, and Father said to him, "I can remember when my hair +was as red as yours." The boy stared at him and passed on. + +Although Father lacked delicacy, he did not lack candor or directness. +He would tell a joke on himself with the same glee that he would on +any one else.... I have heard him tell how, in 1844, at the time of the +"anti-renters," when he saw the posse coming, he ran over the hill to +Uncle Daniel's and crawled under the bed, but left his feet sticking +out, and there they found him. He had not offended, or dressed as an +Indian, but had sympathized with the offenders. + +He made a great deal of noise about the farm, sending his voice over the +hills (we could hear him calling us to dinner when we were working on +the "Rundle Place," half a mile away), shouting at the cows, the pigs, +the sheep, or calling the dog, with needless expenditure of vocal power +at all times and seasons. The neighbors knew when Father was at home; so +did the cattle in the remotest field. His bark was always to be dreaded +more than his bite. His threats of punishment were loud and severe, but +the punishment rarely came. Never but once did he take a gad to me, and +then the sound was more than the substance. I deserved more than I got: +I had let a cow run through the tall grass in the meadow when I might +easily have "headed her off," as I was told to do. Father used to say +"No," to our requests for favors (such as a day off to go fishing or +hunting) with strong emphasis, and then yield to our persistent coaxing. + +One day I was going to town and asked him for money to buy an algebra. +"What is an algebra?" He had never heard of an algebra, and couldn't +see why I needed one; he refused the money, though I coaxed and Mother +pleaded with him. I had left the house and had got as far as the big +hill up there by the pennyroyal rock, when he halloed to me that I might +get the algebra--Mother had evidently been instrumental in bringing him +to terms. But my blood was up by this time, and as I trudged along to +the village I determined to wait until I could earn the money myself +for the algebra, and some other books I coveted. I boiled sap and +made maple-sugar, and the books were all the sweeter by reason of the +maple-sugar money. + +When I wanted help, as I did two or three times later, on a pinch. +Father refused me; and, as it turned out, I was the only one of his +children that could or would help him when the pinch came--a curious +retribution, but one that gave me pleasure and him no pain. I was better +unhelped, as it proved, and better for all I could help him. But he was +a loving father all the same. He couldn't understand my needs, but love +outweighs understanding. + +He did not like my tendency to books; he was afraid, as I learned later, +that I would become a Methodist minister--his pet aversion. He never +had much faith in me--less than in any of his children; he doubted if +I would ever amount to anything. He saw that I was an odd one, and had +tendencies and tastes that he did not sympathize with. He never alluded +to my literary work; apparently left it out of his estimate of me. +My aims and aspirations were a sealed book to him, as his peculiar +religious experiences were to me, yet I reckon it was the same leaven +working in us both. + +I remember, on my return from Dr. Holmes's seventieth birthday +breakfast, in 1879, a remark of father's. He had overheard me telling +sister Abigail about the breakfast, and he declared: "I had rather go to +hear old Elder Jim Mead preach two hours, if he was living, than attend +all the fancy parties in the world." He said he had heard him preach +when he did not know whether he was in the body or out of the body. The +elder undoubtedly had a strong natural eloquence. + +Although Father never spoke to me of my writings, Abigail once told me +that when she showed him a magazine with some article of mine in, and +accompanied by a photograph of me, he looked at it a long time; he said +nothing, but his eyes filled with tears. + +He went to school to the father of Jay Gould, John Gould--the first +child born in the town of Roxbury (about 1780 or 1790). + +He married Amy Kelly, my mother, in 1827. He was six years her senior. +She lived over in Red Kill where he had taught school, and was one of +his pupils. I have often heard him say: "I rode your Uncle Martin's old +sorrel mare over to her folks' when I went courting her." When he +would be affectionate toward her before others, Mother would say, "Now, +Chauncey, don't be foolish." + +Father bought the farm of 'Riah Bartram's mother, and moved on it in +1827. In a house that stood where the Old Home does now, I was born, +April 3, 1837. It was a frame house with three or four rooms below and +one room "done off" above, and a big chamber. I was the fifth son and +the seventh child of my parents. + +(Illustration of Birthplace of John Burroughs, Roxbury, New York. From a +photograph by Charles S. Olcott) + +Mother was in her twenty-ninth year when she was carrying me. She had +already borne four boys and two girls; her health was good and her life, +like that of all farmers' wives in that section, was a laborious one. +I can see her going about her work--milking, butter-making, washing, +cooking, berry-picking, sugar-making, sewing, knitting, mending, and the +thousand duties that fell to her lot and filled her days. Both she and +Father were up at daylight in summer, and before daylight in winter. +Sometimes she had help in the kitchen, but oftener she did not. The work +that housewives did in those times seems incredible. They made their own +soap, sugar, cheese, dipped or moulded their candles, spun the flax and +wool and wove it into cloth, made carpets, knit the socks and mittens +and "comforts" for the family, dried apples, pumpkins, and berries, and +made the preserves and pickles for home use. + +Mother went about all these duties with cheerfulness and alacrity. She +more than kept up her end of the farm work. She was more strenuous than +father. How many hours she sat up mending and patching our clothes, +while we were sleeping! Rainy days meant no let-up in her work, as they +did in Father's. + +The first suit of clothes I remember having, she cut and made. Then the +quilts and coverlids she pieced and quilted! We used, too, in my boyhood +to make over two tons of butter annually, the care of which devolved +mainly upon her, from the skimming of the pans to the packing of the +butter in the tubs and firkins, though the churning was commonly done by +a sheep or a dog. We made our own cheese, also. As a boy I used to help +do the wheying, and I took toll out of the sweet curd. One morning I +ate so much of the curd that I was completely cloyed, and could eat none +after that. + +I can remember Mother's loom pounding away hour after hour in the +chamber of an outbuilding where she was weaving a carpet, or cloth. I +used to help do some of the quilling--running the yarn or linen thread +upon spools to be used in the shuttles. The distaff, the quill-wheel, +the spinning-wheel, the reel, were very familiar to me as a boy; so was +the crackle, the swingle, the hetchel, for Father grew flax which Mother +spun into thread and wove into cloth for our shirts and summer trousers, +and for towels and sheets. Wearing those shirts, when new, made a boy's +skin pretty red. I dare say they were quite equal to a hair shirt to do +penance in; and wiping on a new home-made linen towel suggested wiping +on a brier bush. Dear me! how long it has been since I have seen any +tow, or heard a loom or a spinning-wheel, or seen a boy breaking in his +new flax-made shirt! No one sees these things any more. + +Mother had but little schooling; she learned to read, but not to write +or cipher; hence, books and such interests took none of her time. She +was one of those uneducated countrywomen of strong natural traits and +wholesome instincts, devoted to her children; she bore ten, and +nursed them all--an heroic worker, a helpful neighbor, and a provident +housewife, with the virtues that belonged to so many farmers' wives in +those days, and which we are all glad to be able to enumerate in our +mothers. + +She had not a large frame, but was stout; had brown hair and blue eyes, +a fine strong brow, and a straight nose with a strong bridge to it. She +was a woman of great emotional capacity, who felt more than she thought. +She scolded a good deal, but was not especially quick-tempered. She was +an Old-School Baptist, as was Father. + +She was not of a vivacious or sunny disposition--always a little in +shadow, as it seems to me now, given to brooding and to dwelling upon +the more serious aspects of life. How little she knew of all that has +been done and thought in the world! and yet the burden of it all was, +in a way, laid upon her. The seriousness of Revolutionary times, out +of which came her father and mother, was no doubt reflected in her own +serious disposition. As I have said, her happiness was always shaded, +never in a strong light; and the sadness which motherhood, and the care +of a large family, and a yearning heart beget was upon her. I see myself +in her perpetually. A longing which nothing can satisfy I share +with her. Whatever is most valuable in my books comes from her--the +background of feeling, of pity, of love comes from her. + +She was of a very different temperament from Father--much more +self-conscious, of a more breeding, inarticulate nature. She was richly +endowed with all the womanly instincts and affections. She had a decided +preference for Abigail and me among her children, wanted me to go to +school, and was always interceding with Father to get me books. +She never read one of my books. She died in 1880, at the age of +seventy-three. I had published four of my books then. + +She had had a stroke of apoplexy in the fall of 1879, but lived till +December of the following year, dying on father's seventy-seventh +birthday. (He lived four years more.) We could understand but little of +what she said after she was taken ill. She used to repeat a line from an +old hymn--"Only a veil between." + +She thought a good deal of some verses I wrote--"My Brother's Farm"--and +had them framed. (You have seen them in the parlor at the Old Home. I +wrote them in Washington the fall that you were born. I was sick and +forlorn at the time.) + +I owe to Mother my temperament, my love of nature, my brooding, +introspective habit of mind--all those things which in a literary man +help to give atmosphere to his work. In her line were dreamers and +fishermen and hunters. One of her uncles lived alone in a little house +in the woods. His hut was doubtless the original Slabsides. Grandfather +Kelly was a lover of solitude, as all dreamers are, and Mother's +happiest days, I think, were those spent in the fields after berries. +The Celtic element, which I get mostly from her side, has no doubt +played an important part in my life. My idealism, my romantic +tendencies, are largely her gift. + +On my father's side I find no fishermen or hermits or dreamers. I find a +marked religious strain, more active and outspoken than on Mother's. The +religion of the Kellys was, for the most part, of the silent, meditative +kind, but there are preachers and teachers and scholars on Father's +side--one of them, Stephen Burroughs (b. 1765), a renegade preacher. +Doubtless most of my own intellectual impetus comes from this side of +the family. There are also cousins and second cousins on this side who +became preachers, and some who became physicians, but I recall none on +the Kelly side. + +In size and physical make-up I am much like my father. I have my +father's foot, and I detect many of his ways in my own. My loud and +harmless barking, when I am angered, I get from him. The Kellys are +more apt to bite. I see myself, too, in my brothers, in their looks and +especially in their weaknesses. Take from me my special intellectual +equipment, and I am in all else one of them. + + +(Speaking of their characteristics as a family, Mr. Burroughs says that +they have absolute inability to harbor resentment (a Celtic trait); that +they never have "cheek" to ask enough for what they have to sell, lack +decision, and are easily turned from their purpose. Commenting on this, +he has often said: "We are weak as men--do not make ourselves felt in +the community. But this very weakness is a help to me as a writer upon +Nature. I don't stand in my own light. I get very close to bird and +beast. My thin skin lets the shy and delicate influences pass. I can +surrender myself to Nature without effort. I am like her.... That which +hinders me with men, makes me strong with impersonal Nature, and admits +me to her influences.... I am lacking in moral fibre, but am tender and +sympathetic.") + + +To see Mr. Burroughs stand and fondly gaze upon the fruitful, +well-cultivated fields that his father had cared for so many years, to +hear him say that the hills are like father and mother to him, was to +realize how strong is the filial instinct in him--that and the home +feeling. As he stood on the crest of the big hill by the pennyroyal +rock, looking down on the peaceful homestead in the soft light of a +midsummer afternoon, his eye roamed fondly over the scene:-- + +"How fertile and fruitful it is now, but how lonely and bleak the old +place looked in that winter landscape the night I drove up from the +station in the moonlight after hearing of Father's death! There was a +light in the window, but I knew Father would not meet me at the door +this time--beleaguering winter without, and Death within! + +"Father and Mother! I think of them with inexpressible love and +yearning, wrapped in their last eternal sleep. They had, for them, +the true religion, the religion of serious, simple, hard-working. +God-fearing lives. To believe as they did, to sit in their pews, is +impossible to me--the Time-Spirit has decreed otherwise; but all I am or +can be or achieve is to emulate their virtues--my soul can be saved only +by a like truthfulness and sincerity." + + +The following data concerning his brothers and sisters were given me by +Mr. Burroughs in conversation:-- + +Hiram, born in 1827, was an unpractical man and a dreamer; he was a +bee-keeper. He showed great aptitude in the use of tools, could make +axe-handles, neck-yokes, and the various things used about the farm, and +was especially skilled in building stone walls. But he could not elbow +his way in a crowd, could not make farming pay, and was always pushed +to the wall. He cared nothing for books, and although he studied +grammar when a boy, and could parse, he never could write a grammatical +sentence. He died at the age of seventy-five. + +Olly Ann was about two years younger than Hiram. Mr. Burroughs remembers +her as a frail, pretty girl, with dark-brown eyes, a high forehead, and +a wasp-like waist. She had a fair education for her time, married and +had two children, and died in early womanhood of phthisis. + +Wilson was a farmer, thrifty and economical. He married but had no +children. He was evidently somewhat neurotic; as a child, even when +well, he would groan and moan in his sleep, and he died, at the age of +twenty-eight, after a short illness, of a delirious fever. + +Curtis also was a farmer, but lacked judgment; could not look ahead; +thought if he gave his note a debt was canceled, and went on piling up +other indebtedness. He had a very meagre schooling, but was apt at witty +remarks. He was temperate; was much given to reading "The Signs of the +Times," like his father before him. He married and had five children. +For many years previous to his death he lived at the homestead, dying +there in his eightieth year, in the summer of 1912. Two of his unmarried +children still live at the Old Home,--of all places on the earth the one +toward which Mr. Burroughs turns with the most yearning fondness. + +Edmund died in infancy. + +Jane, a tender-hearted, old-fashioned woman, who cried and fretted +easily, and worried over trifles, was a good housekeeper, and a fond +mother--a fat, dumpy little woman with a doleful voice. She was always +urging her brother not to puzzle his head about writing; writing and +thinking, she said, were "bad for the head." When he would go away on +a journey of only a hundred miles, she would worry incessantly lest +something happen to him. She married and had five daughters. Her death +occurred in May, 1912, at the age of seventy-seven. "Poor Jane!" said +Mr. Burroughs one day, when referring to her protests against his +writing; "I fear she never read a dozen printed words of mine--or shall +I say 'lucky Jane'?" + +John, born in 1837, was always "an odd one." (One is reminded of what +William R. Thayer said of the Franklin family: "Among the seventeen +Franklin children one was a Benjamin, and the rest nobodies.") + +Eden was born in 1839. Frail most of his life, in later years he has +become robust, and now (1913) is the only surviving member of the family +besides Mr. Burroughs. He is cheery and loquacious, methodical and +orderly, and very punctilious in dress. (One day, in the summer of 1912, +when he was calling at "Woodchuck Lodge,"--the summer home where Mr. +Burroughs has lived of late years, near the old place where he +was born,--this brother recounted some of their youthful exploits, +especially the one which yielded the material for the essay "A White Day +and a Red Fox." "I shot the fox and got five dollars for it," said +Mr. Eden Burroughs, "and John wrote a piece about it, and got +seventy-five.") + +Abigail, the favorite sister of our author, appreciated her brother's +books and his ideals more than any other member of the family. She +married and had two children. At the time of her death, in 1901, of +typhoid fever (at the age of fifty-eight) the band of brothers and +sisters had been unbroken by death for more than thirty-seven years. +Her loss was a severe blow to her brother. He had always shared his +windfalls with her; she had read some of his essays, and used to talk +with him about his aspirations, encouraging him timidly, before he had +gained recognition. + +Eveline died at the age of five years. + + +The death of his brother Hiram, in 1904, made the past bleed afresh for +Mr. Burroughs. "He was next to Father and Mother in my affections," +he wrote. "Oh! if I had only done more for him--this is my constant +thought. If I could only have another chance! How generous death makes +us! Go, then, and make up by doing more for the living." + +As I walked with him about the Old Home, he said, "I can see Hiram in +everything here; in the trees he planted and grafted, in these stone +walls he built, in this land he so industriously cultivated during the +years he had the farm." + +So large a place in his affections did this brother hold, and yet how +wide apart were these two in their real lives! I know of no one who has +pictured the pathos of lives so near and yet so far apart as has George +Eliot when she says: "Family likeness has often a deep sadness in it. +Nature, that great tragic dramatist, knits us together by bone and +muscle, and divides us by the subtler web of our brains; blends yearning +and repulsion, and ties us by our heart-strings to the beings that jar +us at every moment. We hear a voice with the very cadence of our +own uttering the thoughts we despise; we see eyes--ah! so like our +mother's--averted from us in cold alienation." + +We cannot tell why one boy in a family turns out a genius, while the +others stay in the ancestral ruts and lead humdrum, placid lives, any +more than we can tell why one group of the hepaticas we gather in the +April woods has the gift of fragrance, while those of a sister group in +the same vicinity are scentless. A caprice of fate, surely, that "mate +and mate beget such different issues." + +"Hiram was with me at Slabsides," said Mr. Burroughs, "much of the time +when I was writing the Whitman book, but never referred to it in any +way. When it came from the press, I said to him, 'Hiram, here is the +book you have heard me speak about as having cost me nearly four years' +work, and which I rewrote four times.'" + +"'That's the book, is it?' he replied, showing no curiosity about it, or +desire to look into it, but kept drumming on the table--a habit of his +that was very annoying to me at times, but of which he was not aware. +When 'A Year in the Fields' came out, he looked at some of the pictures, +but that was all." + +There is something very pathetic in all this--these two brothers living +in that isolated cabin in the woods, knit together by the ties of +kinship, having in common a deep and yearning love for each other, +and for the Old Home in the Catskills,--their daily down-sittings and +up-risings outwardly the same, yet so alienated in what makes up one's +real existence. The one, the elder, intent on his bees, his thoughts +by day revolving about his hives, or concerned with the weather and the +daily happenings; at night, as he idly drums with his fingers, dreaming +of the old days on the farm--of how he used to dig out rocks to build +the fences, of the sugar-making, of cradling the oats in July; while the +other--ah! the other, of what was he not thinking!--of the little +world of the hives (his thoughts yielding the exquisite "Idyl of the +Honey-Bee"), of boyhood days upon the farm, of the wild life around his +cabin, of the universe, and of the soul of the poet Whitman, that then +much misunderstood man, than whom no one so much as he has helped us to +appreciate. Going out and in, attending to his homely tasks (for these +brothers did their own housework), the younger brother was all the time +thinking of that great soul, of all that association with him had meant +to him, and of all that Whitman would mean to America, to the world, +as poet, prophet, seer--thinking how out of his knowledge of Whitman as +poet and person he could cull and sift and gather together an adequate +and worthy estimate of one whom his soul loved as Jonathan loved David! + +The mystery of personality--how shall one fathom it? I asked myself this +one rainy afternoon, as I sat in the Burroughs homestead and looked from +one brother to another, the two so alike and yet so unlike. The one +a simple farmer whose interests are circumscribed by the hills which +surround the farm on which as children they were reared; the other, +whose interests in the early years were seemingly just as circumscribed, +but who felt that nameless something--that push from within--which first +found its outlet in a deeper interest in the life about him than his +brothers ever knew; and who later felt the magic of the world of books; +and, still later, the need of expression, an expression which finally +showed itself in a masterly interpretation of country life and +experiences. The same heredity here, the same environment, the same +opportunities--yet how different the result! The farmer has tended and +gathered many a crop from the old place since they were boys, but has +been blind and deaf to all that has there yielded such a harvest to +the other. That other, a plain, unassuming man, "standing at ease +in nature," has become a household word because of all that he has +contributed to our intellectual and emotional life. + +A man who as a lad had roamed the Roxbury hills with John Burroughs and +his brothers, and had known the boy John as something of a dreamer, +and thought of him in later years as perhaps of less account than his +brothers (since they had settled down, owned land, and were leading +industrious lives), was traveling in Europe in the eighties. On the +top of a stage-coach in the Scottish Highlands he sat next a +scholarly-looking man whose garb, he thought, betokened a priest. From +some question which the traveler put, the Englishman learned that the +stranger was from America. Immediately he showed a lively interest. +"From America! Do you, then, know John Burroughs?" + +Imagine the surprise of the Delaware County farmer at being questioned +about his schoolmate, the dreamer, who, to be sure, "took to books"; but +what was he that this Englishman should inquire about him as the one man +in America he was eager to learn about! Doubtless Mr. Burroughs was +the one literary man the Delaware County farmer did know, though his +knowledge was on the personal and not on the literary side. And imagine +the surprise of the priest (if priest it was) to find that he had +actually lighted upon a schoolmate of the author!--C. B.) + + + + +CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH + + +I seem to have been a healthy, active child, very impressionable, and +with more interests and a keener enjoyment of things than most farm boys +have. I was fond of the girls back as early as I can remember, and had +my sweethearts at a very early age.... + +I learned my letters at school, when I was five or six, in the +old-fashioned way by being called up to the teacher several times a +day and naming the letters as he pointed at them where they stood in a +perpendicular column in Cobb's Spelling-Book. The vowels and consonants +stood in separate columns, and had to be learned one by one, by +continued repetition. It took me a long time, I remember, to distinguish +_b_ from _d_, and _c_ from _e_. When and how I learned to read I do not +remember. I recall Cobb's Second Reader, and later Olney's Geography, +and then Dayballs Arithmetic. + +I went to school summers till I was old enough to help on the farm, say +at the age of eleven or twelve, when my schooling was confined to the +winters. + +(Illustration of The Old Schoolhouse, Roxbury, New York. From a +photograph by M.H. Fanning) + +As a boy, the only farm work that appealed to me was sugar-making in the +maple woods in spring. This I thoroughly enjoyed. It brought me near to +wild nature and was freer from routine than other farm work. Then I soon +managed to gather a little harvest of my own from the sugar bush. I used +to anticipate the general tapping by a few days or a week, and tap a few +trees on my own account along the sunny border of the Woods, and boil +the sap down on the kitchen stove (to the disgust of the womenfolks), +selling the sugar in the village. I think the first money I ever earned +came to me in this way. My first algebra and first grammar I bought +with some of this precious money. When I appeared in the village with my +basket of small cakes of early sugar, how my customers would hail me and +call after me! No one else made such white sugar, or got it to market so +early. One season, I remember, I got twelve silver quarters for sugar, +and I carried them in my pockets for weeks, jingling them in the face of +my envious schoolmates, and at intervals feasting my own eyes upon them. +I fear if I could ever again get hold of such money as that was I should +become a miser. + +Hoeing corn, weeding the garden, and picking stone was drudgery, and +haying and harvesting I liked best when they were a good way off; +picking up potatoes worried me, but gathering apples suited my hands and +my fancy better, and knocking "Juno's cushions" in the spring meadows +with my long-handled knocker, about the time the first swallow was heard +laughing overhead, was real fun. I always wanted some element of play in +my work; buckling down to any sort of routine always galled me, and does +yet. The work must be a kind of adventure, and permit of sallies into +free fields. Hence the most acceptable work for me was to be sent +strawberrying or raspberrying by Mother; but the real fun was to +go fishing up Montgomery Hollow, or over on Rose's Brook, this +necessitating a long tramp, and begetting a hunger in a few hours that +made a piece of rye bread the most delectable thing in the world; yet a +pure delight that never sated. + +Mother used to bake her bread in the large old-fashioned brick oven, and +once or twice a week we boys had to procure oven wood. + +"You must get me oven wood this morning," she would say; "I am going +to bake today." Then we would scurry around for dry, light, quick +wood--pieces of old boxes and boards, and dry limbs. "One more armful," +she would often say, when we were inclined to quit too soon. In a +half-hour or so, the wood would be reduced to ashes, and the oven +properly heated. I can see Mother yet as she would open the oven door +and feel the air inside with her hand. "Run, quick, and get me a few +more sticks--it is not quite hot enough." When it was ready, the coals +and ashes were raked out, and in went the bread, six or seven big loaves +of rye, with usually two of wheat. The wheat was for company. + +When we would come in at dinner- or supper-time and see wheat bread +on the table we would ask: "Who's in the other room?" Maybe the answer +would be, "Your Uncle Martin and Aunt Virey." How glad I would be! I +always liked to see company. Well, the living was better, and then, +company brought a new element into the day; it gave a little tinge of +romance to things. To wake up in the morning and think that Uncle Martin +and Aunt Virey were there, or Uncle Edmund and Aunt Saliny, quickened +the pulse a little. Or, when any of my cousins came,--boys near my own +age,--what joy filled the days! And when they went, how lonesome I would +be! how forlorn all things looked till the second or third day! I early +developed a love of comrades, and was always fond of company--and am +yet, as the records of Slabsides show. + + +I was quite a hunter in my youth, as most farm boys are, but I never +brought home much game--a gray squirrel, a partridge, or a wild pigeon +occasionally. I think with longing and delight of the myriads of wild +pigeons that used to come every two or three years--covering the sky +for a day or two, and making the naked spring woods gay and festive with +their soft voices and fluttering blue wings. I have seen thousands of +them go through a beech wood, like a blue wave, picking up the sprouting +beechnuts. Those in the rear would be constantly flying over those in +front, so that the effect was that of a vast billow of mingled white and +blue and brown, rustling and murmuring as it went. One spring afternoon +vast flocks of them were passing south over our farm for hours, when +some of them began to pour down in the beech woods on the hill by the +roadside. A part of nearly every flock that streamed by would split off +and, with a downward wheel and rush, join those in the wood. Presently I +seized the old musket and ran out in the road, and then crept up behind +the wall, till only the width of the road separated me from the swarms +of fluttering pigeons. The air and the woods were literally blue with +them, and the ground seemed a yard deep with them. I pointed my gun +across the wall at the surging masses, and then sat there spellbound. +The sound of their wings and voices filled my ears, and their numbers +more than filled my eyes. Why I did not shoot was never very clear to +me. Maybe I thought the world was all turning to pigeons, as they still +came pouring down from the heavens, and I did not want to break the +spell. There I sat waiting, waiting, with my eye looking along the +gun-barrel, till, suddenly, the mass rose like an explosion, and with a +rush and a roar they were gone. Then I came to my senses and with keen +mortification realized what an opportunity I had let slip. Such a chance +never came again, though the last great flight of pigeons did not take +place till 1875. + +When I was about ten or twelve, a spell was put upon me by a red fox +in a similar way. The baying of a hound upon the mountain had drawn +me there, armed with the same old musket. It was a chilly day in early +December. I took up my stand in the woods near what I thought might be +the runway, and waited. After a while I stood the butt of my gun upon +the ground, and held the barrel with my hand. Presently I heard a rustle +in the leaves, and there came a superb fox loping along past me, not +fifty feet away. He was evidently not aware of my presence, and, as for +me, I was aware of his presence alone. I forgot that I had a gun, that +here was the game I was in quest of, and that now was my chance to add +to my store of silver quarters. As the unsuspecting fox disappeared over +a knoll, again I came to my senses, and brought my gun to my shoulder; +but it was too late, the game had gone. I returned home full of +excitement at what I had seen, and gave as the excuse why I did not +shoot, that I had my mitten on, and could not reach the trigger of +my gun. It is true I had my mitten on, but there was a mitten, or +something, on my wits also. It was years before I heard the last of that +mitten; when I failed at anything they said, "John had his mitten on, I +guess." + +I remember that I had a sort of cosmogony of my own when I was a mere +boy. I used to speculate as to what the world was made of. Partly +closing my eyes, I could see what appeared to be little crooked chains +of fine bubbles floating in the air, and I concluded that that was the +stuff the world was made of. And the philosophers have not yet arrived +at a much more satisfactory explanation. + +In thinking of my childhood and youth I try to define to myself wherein +I differed from my brothers and from other boys in the neighborhood, +or wherein I showed any indication of the future bent of my mind. I see +that I was more curious and alert than most boys, and had more interests +outside my special duties as a farm boy. I knew pretty well the ways +of the wild bees and hornets when I was only a small lad. I knew the +different bumblebees, and had made a collection of their combs and +honey before I had entered my teens. I had watched the little frogs, the +hylas, and had captured them and held them till they piped sitting in my +hand. I had watched the leaf-cutters and followed them to their nests in +an old rail, or under a stone. I see that I early had an interest in +the wild life about me that my brothers did not have. I was a natural +observer from childhood, had a quick, sure eye and ear, and an eager +curiosity. I loved to roam the hills and woods and prowl along the +streams, just to come in contact with the wild and the adventurous. I +was not sent to Sunday-school, but was allowed to spend the day as I +saw fit, provided I did not carry a gun or a fishing-rod. Indeed, the +foundation of my knowledge of the ways of the wild creatures was laid +when I was a farm boy, quite unconscious of the natural-history value of +my observations. + +What, or who, as I grew up, gave my mind its final push in this +direction would not be easy to name. It is quite certain that I got it +through literature, and more especially through the works of Audubon, +when I was twenty-five or twenty-six years of age. + +The sentiment of nature is so full and winsome in the best modern +literature that I was no doubt greatly influenced by it. I was early +drawn to Wordsworth and to our own Emerson and Thoreau, and to the +nature articles in the "Atlantic Monthly," and my natural-history tastes +were stimulated by them. + +I have a suspicion that "nature-study" as now followed in the +schools--or shall I say in the colleges?--this classroom peeping and +prying into the mechanism of life, dissecting, probing, tabulating, void +of free observation, and shut away from the open air--would have cured +me of my love of nature. For love is the main thing, the prime thing, +and to train the eye and ear and acquaint one with the spirit of the +great-out-of-doors, rather than a lot of minute facts about nature, is, +or should be, the object of nature-study. Who cares about the anatomy +of the frog? But to know the live frog--his place in the season and the +landscape, and his life-history--is something. If I wanted to instill +the love of nature into a child's heart, I should do it, in the first +place, through country life, and, in the next place, through the best +literature, rather than through classroom investigations, or through +books of facts about the mere mechanics of nature. Biology is all right +for the few who wish to specialize in that branch, but for the mass of +pupils, it is a waste of time. Love of nature cannot be commanded or +taught, but in some minds it can be stimulated. + + +Sweet were the days of my youth! How I love to recall them and dwell +upon them!--a world apart, separated from the present by a gulf like +that of sidereal space. The old farm bending over the hills and +dipping down into the valleys, the woods, the streams, the springs, the +mountains, and Father and Mother under whose wings I was so protected, +and all my brothers and sisters-how precious the thought of them all! +Can the old farm ever mean to future boys what it meant to me, and enter +so deeply into their lives? No doubt it can, hard as it is to believe +it. The "Bundle place," the "barn on the hill," the "Deacon woods," +the clover meadow, the "turn in the road," the burying-ground, the +sheep-lot, the bush-lot, the sumac-lot, the "new-barn meadow," the +"old-barn meadow," and so on through the list--each field and section of +the farm had to me an atmosphere and association of its own. The long, +smooth, broad hill--a sort of thigh of the mountain (Old Clump) upon +the lower edge of which the house is planted--shut off the west and +southwest winds; its fields were all amenable to the plough, yielding +good crops of oats, rye, buckwheat, potatoes, or, when in grass, +yielding good pasture, divided east and west by parallel stone walls; +this hill, or lower slope of the mountain, was one of the principal +features of the farm. It was steep, but it was smooth; it was +broad-backed and fertile; its soil was made up mainly of decomposed old +red sandstone. How many times have I seen its different sections grow +ruddy under the side-hill plough! One of my earliest recollections of +my father is seeing him, when I was a child of three or four, striding +across the middle side-hill lot with a bag slung across his breast, +scattering the seed-grain. + +How often at early nightfall, while the west was yet glowing, have I +seen the grazing cattle silhouetted against the sky. In the winter the +northwest winds would sweep the snow clean from the other side, and +bring it over to our side and leave it in a long, huge drift that buried +the fences and gave the hill an extra full-breasted appearance. The +breast of the old hill would be padded with ten or fifteen feet of snow. +This drift would often last till May. I have seen it stop the plough. +I remember once carrying a jug of water up to Brother Curtis when his +plough was within a few feet of the snow. Woodchucks would sometimes +feel the spring through this thick coverlid of snow and bore up through +it to the sunlight. I think the woodchuck's alarm clock always goes off +before April is done, and he comes forth, apparently not to break his +long fast, but to find his mate. + +I remember working in oats in the middle side-hill lot one September +during the early years of the Civil War, when Hiram was talking of +enlisting as a drummer, and when Father and Mother were much worried +about it. I carried together the sheaves, putting fifteen in a "shock." + +I have heard my father tell of a curious incident that once befell his +hired man and himself when they were drawing in oats on a sled from the +first side-hill lot. They had on a load, and the hired man had thrust +his fork into the upper sides of it and was bringing his weight to bear +against its tendency to capsize. But gravity got the better of them and +over went the load; the hired man (Rueb Dart) clung to his fork, and +swung over the load through the air, alighting on his feet none the +worse for the adventure. + +The spring that supplies the house and the dairy with water comes from +the middle side-hill lot, some forty or fifty rods from the house, and +is now brought down in pipes; in my time, in pump-logs. It was always an +event when the old logs had to be taken up and new ones put down. I saw +the logs renewed twice in my time; once poplar logs were used, and once +hemlock, both rather short-lived. A man from a neighboring town used +to come with his long auger and bore the logs--a spectacle I was never +tired of looking at. + +Then the sap bush in the groin of the hill, and but a few minutes' walk +from the house, what a feature that was! In winter and in summer, what +delightful associations I have with it! I know each of its great sugar +maples as I know my friends or the members of the family. Each has a +character of its own, and in sap-producing capacity they differ greatly. +A fringe of the great trees stood out in the open fields; these were the +earliest to run. + +In early March we used to begin to make ready for sugar-making by +overhauling the sap "spiles," resharpening the old ones, and making new +ones. The old-fashioned awkward sap-gouge was used in tapping in those +days, and the "spiles" or spouts were split out of basswood blocks with +this gouge, and then sharpened so as to fit the half-round gash which +the gouge made in the tree. The dairy milk-pans were used to catch the +sap, and huge iron kettles to boil it down in. + +When the day came to tap the bush, the caldrons, the hogsheads, and the +two hundred or more pans with the bundles of spiles were put upon the +sled and drawn by the oxen up to the boiling-place in the sap bush. +Father and Brother Hiram did the tapping, using an axe to cut the gash +in the tree, and to drive in the gouge below it to make a place for +the spile, while one of my younger brothers and I carried the pans and +placed them in position. + +It was always a glad time with me; the early birds were singing and +calling, the snowbanks were melting, the fields were getting bare, the +roads drying, and spring tokens were on every hand. We gathered the sap +by hand in those days, two pails and a neck-yoke. It was sturdy work. +We would usually begin about three or four o'clock, and by five have the +one hundred and fifty pailfuls of sap in the hogsheads. When the sap ran +all night, we would begin the gathering in the morning. The syruping-off +usually took place at the end of the second day's boiling, when two or +three hundred pailfuls of sap had been reduced to four or five of syrup. +In the March or April twilight, or maybe after dark, we would carry +those heavy pails of syrup down to the house, where the liquid was +strained while still hot. The reduction of it to sugar was done upon the +kitchen stove, from three hundred to five hundred pounds being about the +average annual yield. + +The bright warm days at the boiling-place I love best to remember; the +robins running about over the bare ground or caroling from the treetops, +the nuthatches calling, the crows walking about the brown fields, the +bluebirds flitting here and there, the cows lowing or restless in the +barnyard. + + +When I think of the storied lands across the Atlantic,--England, France, +Germany, Italy, so rich in historical associations, steeped in legend +and poetry, the very look of the fields redolent of the past,--and then +turn to my own native hills, how poor and barren they seem!--not one +touch anywhere of that which makes the charm of the Old World--no +architecture, no great names; in fact, no past. They look naked and +prosy, yet how I love them and cling to them! They are written over with +the lives of the first settlers that cleared the fields and built the +stone walls--simple, common-place lives, worthy and interesting, but +without the appeal of heroism or adventure. + +The land here is old, geologically, dating back to the Devonian Age, the +soil in many places of decomposed old red sandstone; but it is new in +human history, having been settled only about one hundred and fifty +years. + +Time has worn down the hills and mountains so that all the outlines +of the country are gentle and flowing. The valleys are long, open, and +wide; the hills broad and smooth, no angles or abruptness, or sharp +contrasts anywhere. Hence it is not what is called a picturesque +land--full of bits of scenery that make the artist's fingers itch. The +landscape has great repose and gentleness, so far as long, sweeping +lines and broad, smooth slopes can give this impression. It is a +land which has never suffered violence at the hands of the interior +terrestrial forces; nothing is broken or twisted or contorted or thrust +out or up abruptly. The strata are all horizontal, and the steepest +mountain-slopes clothed with soil that nourishes large forest growths. + + +I stayed at home, working on the farm in summer and going to school in +winter, till I was seventeen. From the time I was fourteen I had had +a desire to go away to school. I had a craving for knowledge which my +brothers did not share. One fall when I was about fifteen I had the +promise from Father that I might go to school at the Academy in the +village that winter. But I did not go. Then the next fall I had the +promise of going to the Academy at Harpersfield, where one of the +neighbor's boys, Dick Van Dyke, went. How I dreamed of Harpersfield! +That fall I did my first ploughing, stimulated to it by the promise +of Harpersfield. It was in September, in the lot above the sugar +bush--cross-ploughing, to prepare the ground for rye. How many days I +ploughed, I do not remember; but Harpersfield was the lure at the end of +each furrow, I remember that. To this day I cannot hear the name without +seeing a momentary glow upon my mental horizon--a finger of enchantment +is for an instant laid upon me. + +But I did not go to Harpersfield. When the time drew near for me to go, +Father found himself too poor, or the expense looked too big--none of +the other boys had had such privileges, and why should I? So I swallowed +my disappointment and attended the home district school for another +winter. Yet I am not sure but I went to Harpersfield after all. The +desire, the yearning to go, the effort to make myself worthy to go, the +mental awakening, and the high dreams, were the main matter. I doubt +if the reality would have given me anything more valuable than these +things. The aspiration for knowledge opens the doors of the mind and +makes ready for her coming. + +These were my first and last days at the plough, and they made that +field memorable to me. I never cross it now but I see myself there--a +callow youth being jerked by the plough-handles but with my head in a +cloud of alluring day-dreams. This, I think, was in the fall of 1853. I +went to school that winter with a view to leaving home in the spring to +try my luck at school-teaching in an adjoining county. Many Roxbury boys +had made their first start in the world by going to Ulster County to +teach a country school. I would do the same. So, late in March, 1854, +about the end of the sugar season, I set out for Olive, Ulster County. +An old neighbor, Dr. Hull, lived there, and I would seek him. + +There was only a stage-line at that time connecting the two counties, +and that passed twelve miles from my home. My plan was to cross the +mountain into Red Kill to Uncle Martin Kelly's, pass the night there, +and in the morning go to Clovesville, three miles distant, and take +the stage. How well I remember that walk across the mountain in a +snow-squall through which the sun shone dimly, a black oilcloth satchel +in my hand, and in my heart vague yearnings and forebodings! I had but +a few dollars in my pocket, probably six or seven, most of which I had +earned by selling maple sugar. Father was willing I should go, though my +help was needed on the farm. + +Well, I traversed the eight miles to my uncle's in good time, and in the +morning he drove me down to the turnpike to take the stage. I remember +well my anxious and agitated state of mind while waiting at the hotel +for the arrival of the stage. I had never ridden in one, I am not sure +that I had even seen one, and I did not know just what was expected +of me, or just how I should deport myself. An untraveled farm boy at +seventeen is such a vague creature anyway, and I was, in addition, such +a bundle of sensibilities, timidities, and embarrassments as few farm +boys are. I paid my fare at the hotel at the rate of a sixpence a mile +for about thirty-two miles, and when the stage came, saw my name entered +upon the "waybill," and got aboard with a beating heart. + +Of that first ride of my life in a public conveyance, I remember little. +The stage was one of those old-fashioned rocking Concord coaches, drawn +by four horses. We soon left the snow-clad hills of Delaware County +behind, and dropped down into the milder climate of Ulster, where no +snow was to be seen. About three in the afternoon the stage put me down +at Terry's Tavern on the "plank-road" in Olive. I inquired the way to +Dr. Hull's and found the walk of about a mile an agreeable change. The +doctor and his wife welcomed me cordially. They were old friends of my +family. I spent a day with them, riding about with the doctor on his +visits to patients, and making inquiries for a school in want of a +teacher. On the third day we heard of a vacancy in a district in the +west end of the town, seven or eight miles distant, called Tongore. +Hither I walked one day, saw the trustees, and made my application. I +suspect my youth and general greenness caused them to hesitate; they +would consider and let me know inside of a week. So, in a day or two, +hearing of no other vacancies, I returned home the same way I had come. +It was the first day of April when I made the return trip. I remember +this because at one of the hotels where we changed horses I saw a copper +cent lying upon the floor, and, stooping to pick it up, found it nailed +fast. The bartender and two or three other spectators had a quiet +chuckle at my expense. Before the week was out a letter came from the +Tongore trustees saying I could have the school; wages, ten dollars the +first month, and, if I proved satisfactory, eleven for the other five +months, and "board around." + +I remember the handwriting of that letter as if I had received it but +yesterday. "Come at your earliest opportunity." How vividly I recall the +round hand in which those words were written! I replied that I would be +on hand the next week, ready to open school on Monday, the 11th. + +Again I took the stage, my father driving me twelve miles to Dimmock's +Corners to meet it, a trip which he made with me many times in after +years. Mother always getting up and preparing our breakfast long before +daylight. We were always in a more or less anxious frame of mind upon +the road lest we be too late for the stage, but only once during the +many trips did we miss it. On that occasion it had passed a few minutes +before we arrived, but, knowing it stopped for breakfast at Griffin's +Corners, four or five miles beyond, I hastened on afoot, running most of +the way, and arrived in sight of it just as the driver had let off the +first crack from his whip to start his reluctant horses. My shouting was +quickly passed to him by the onlookers, he pulled up, and I won the race +quite out of breath. + +On the present occasion we were in ample time, and my journey ended at +Shokan, from which place I walked the few miles to Tongore, in the +late April afternoon. The little frogs were piping, and I remember how +homesick the familiar spring sound made me. As I walked along the road +near sundown with this sound in my ears, I saw coming toward me a man +with a gait as familiar as was the piping of the frogs. He turned out +to be our neighbor Warren Scudder, and how delighted I was to see him in +that lonesome land! He had sold a yoke of oxen down there and had been +down to deliver them. The home ties pulled very strongly at sight of +him. Warren's three boys, Reub and Jack and Smith, were our nearest +boy neighbors. His father, old Deacon Scudder, was one of the notable +characters of the town. Warren himself had had some varied experiences. +He was one of the leaders in the anti-rent war of ten years before. +Indeed, he was chief of the band of "Indians" that shot Steel, the +sheriff, at Andes, and it was charged that the bullet from his pistol +was the one that did the fatal work. At any rate, he had had to flee the +country, escaping concealed in a peddler's cart, while close pressed +by the posse. He went South and was absent several years. After the +excitement of the murder and the struggle between the two factions had +died down, he returned and was not molested. And here he was in the +April twilight, on my path to Tongore, and the sight of him cheered my +heart. + + +I began my school Monday morning, April the 11th, 1854, and continued it +for six months, teaching the common branches to twenty or thirty pupils +from the ages of six to twelve or thirteen. I can distinctly recall +the faces of many of those boys and girls to this day--Jane North, a +slender, clean-cut girl of ten or eleven; Elizabeth McClelland, a fat, +freckled girl of twelve; Alice Twilliger, a thin, talkative girl with a +bulging forehead. Two or three of the boys became soldiers in the Civil +War, and fell in the battle of Gettysburg. + +(In April, 1912, Mr. Burroughs received the following: "Hearty +congratulations upon your seventy-fifth birthday, from your old Tongore +pupil of many years ago. R--B--.") + +I "boarded round," going home with the children as they invited me. I +was always put in the spare room, and usually treated to warm biscuit +and pie for supper. A few families were very poor, and there I was lucky +to get bread and potatoes. In one house I remember the bedstead was very +shaky, and in the middle of the night, as I turned over, it began to +sway and lurch, and presently all went down in a heap. But I clung to +the wreck till morning, and said nothing about it then. + +I remember that a notable eclipse of the sun occurred that spring on the +26th of May, when the farmers were planting their corn. + +What books I read that summer I cannot recall. Yes, I recall one--"The +Complete Letter-Writer," which I bought of a peddler, and upon which I +modeled many of my letters to various persons, among others to a Roxbury +girl for whom I had a mild fancy. My first letter to a girl I wrote +to her, and a ridiculously stiff, formal, and awkward letter it was, I +assure you. I am positive I addressed her as "Dear Madam," and started +off with some sentence from "The Complete Letter-Writer," so impressed +was I that there was a best way to do this thing, and that the book +pointed it out. Mary's reply was, "To my absent, but not forgotten +friend," and was simple and natural as girls' letters usually are. My +Grandfather Kelly died that season, and I recall that I wrote a letter +of condolence to my people, modeled upon one in the book. How absurd and +stilted and unreal it must have sounded to them! + + +Oh, how crude and callow and obtuse I was at that time, full of vague +and tremulous aspirations and awakenings, but undisciplined, uninformed, +with many inherited incapacities and obstacles to weigh me down. I was +extremely bashful, had no social aptitude, and was likely to stutter +when anxious or embarrassed, yet I seem to have made a good impression. +I was much liked in school and out, and was fairly happy. I seem to see +sunshine over all when I look back there. But it was a long summer to +me. I had never been from home more than a day or two at a time before, +and I became very homesick. Oh, to walk in the orchard back of the +house, or along the road, or to see the old hills again--what a Joy it +would have been! But I stuck it out till my term ended in October, and +then went home, taking a young fellow from the district (a brother of +some girls I fancied) with me. I took back nearly all my wages, over +fifty dollars, and with this I planned to pay my way at Hedding Literary +Institute, in the adjoining county of Greene, during the coming winter +term. + +I left home for the school late in November, riding the thirty miles +with Father, atop a load of butter. It was the time of year when the +farmers took their butter to Catskill. Father usually made two trips. +This was the first one of the season, and I accompanied him as far as +Ashland, where the Institute was located. + +I remained at school there three months, the length of the winter term, +and studied fairly hard. I had a room by myself and enjoyed the life +with the two hundred or more boys and girls of my own age. I studied +algebra, geometry, chemistry, French, and logic, wrote compositions, and +declaimed in the chapel, as the rules required. It was at this time that +I first read Milton. We had to parse in "Paradise Lost," and I recall +how I was shocked and astonished by that celestial warfare. I told one +of my classmates that I did not believe a word of it. Among my teachers +was a young, delicate, wide-eyed man who in later life became well known +as Bishop Hurst, of the Methodist Church. He heard our small class in +logic at seven o'clock in the morning, in a room that was never quite +warmed by the newly kindled fire. I don't know how I came to study logic +(Whately's). I had never heard of such a study before; maybe that is why +I chose it. I got little out of it. What an absurd study, taught, as +it was, as an aid to argumentation!--like teaching a man to walk by +explaining to him the mechanism of walking. The analysis of one sound +argument, or of one weak one, in terms of common sense, is worth any +amount of such stuff. But it was of a piece with grammar and rhetoric +as then taught--all preposterous studies viewed as helps toward correct +writing and speaking. Think of our parsing Milton as an aid to mastering +the English language! + +I remember I stood fairly high in composition--only one boy in the +school ahead of me, and that was Herman Coons, to whom I became much +attached, and who became a Methodist minister. He went home with me +during the holiday vacation. After leaving school we corresponded for +several years, and then lost track of each other. I do not know that +there is one of my school-mates of that time now living. I know of none +that became eminent in any field. One of the boys was fatally injured +that winter while coasting. I remember sitting up with him many nights +and ministering to him. He died in a few weeks. + +It was an event when Father and Mother came to visit me for a few hours, +and Mother brought me some mince pies. What feasts two or three other +boys and I had in my room over those home-made pies! + +Toward spring we had a public debate in the chapel, and I was chosen as +one of the disputants. We debated the question of the Crimean War, which +was on then. I was on the side of England and France against Russia. Our +side won. I think I spoke very well. I remember that I got much of my +ammunition from a paper in "Harper's Magazine," probably by Dr. Osgood. +It seems my fellow on the affirmative had got much of his ammunition +from the same source, and, as I spoke first, there was not much powder +left for him, and he was greatly embarrassed. + +What insignificant things one remembers in a world of small events! I +recall how one morning when we had all gathered in chapel for prayers, +none of the professors appeared on the platform but our French teacher, +and, as praying for us was not one of his duties, he hurried off to find +some one to perform that function, while we all sat and giggled. + + +In the spring of 1855, with eight or ten dollars in my pocket which +Father had advanced me, I made my first visit to New York by steamer +from Catskill, on my way to New Jersey in quest of a position as +school-teacher. Three of our neighborhood boys were then teaching in or +near Plainfield, and I sought them out, having my first ride on the cars +on that trip from Jersey City. As I sat there in my seat waiting for the +train to start, I remember I actually wondered if the starting would be +so sudden as to jerk my hat off! + +I was too late to find a vacancy in any of the schools in the districts +I visited. On one occasion I walked from Somerville twelve miles to a +village where there was a vacancy, but the trustees, after looking +me over, concluded I was too young and inexperienced for their large +school. That night the occultation of Venus by the moon took place. I +remember gazing at it long and long. + +On my return in May I stopped in New York and spent a day prowling about +the second-hand bookstalls, and spent so much of my money for books that +I had only enough left to carry me to Griffin's Corners, twelve miles +from home. I bought Locke's "Essay on the Human Understanding," Dr. +Johnson's works, Saint-Pierre's "Studies of Nature," and Dick's works +and others. Dick was a Scottish philosopher whose two big fat volumes +held something that caught my mind as I dipped into them. But I got +little from him and soon laid him aside. On this and other trips to New +York I was always drawn by the second-hand bookstalls. How I hovered +about them, how good the books looked, how I wanted them all! To this +day, when I am passing them, the spirit of those days lays its hand upon +me, and I have to pause a few moments and, half-dreaming, half-longing, +run over the titles. Nearly all my copies of the English classics I have +picked up at these curbstone stalls. How much more they mean to me than +new books of later years! Here, for instance, are two volumes of Dr. +Johnson's works in good leather binding, library style, which I have +carried with me from one place to another for over fifty years, and +which in my youth I read and reread, and the style of which I tried +to imitate before I was twenty. When I dip into "The Rambler" and "The +Idler" now how dry and stilted and artificial their balanced sentences +seem! yet I treasure them for what they once were to me. In my first +essay in the "Atlantic," forty-six years ago (in 1860), I said that +Johnson's periods acted like a lever of the third kind, and that the +power applied always exceeded the weight raised; and this comparison +seems to hit the mark very well. I did not read Boswell's Life of him +till much later. In his conversation Johnson got the fulcrum in the +right place. + + +I reached home on the twentieth of May with an empty pocket and an empty +stomach, but with a bagful of books. I remember the day because the +grass was green, but the air was full of those great "goose-feather" +flakes of snow which sometimes fall in late May. + +I stayed home that summer of '55 and worked on the farm, and pored over +my books when I had a chance. I must have found Locke's "Essay" pretty +tough reading, but I remember buckling to it, getting right down on "all +fours," as one has to, to follow Locke. + +I think it was that summer that I read my first novel, "Charlotte +Temple," and was fairly intoxicated with it. It let loose a flood of +emotion in me. I remember finishing it one morning and then going out +to work in the hay-field, and how the homely and familiar scenes fairly +revolted me. I dare say the story took away my taste for Locke and +Johnson for a while. + +In early September I again turned my face Jerseyward in quest of a +school, but stopped on my way in Olive to visit friends in Tongore. The +school there, since I had left it, had fared badly. One of the teachers +the boys had turned out of doors, and the others had "failed to give +satisfaction"; so I was urged to take the school again. The trustees +offered to double my wages--twenty-two dollars a month. After some +hesitation I gave up the Jersey scheme and accepted the trustees' offer. + + +It was during that second term of teaching at Tongore that I first +met Ursula North, who later became my wife. Her uncle was one of the +trustees of the school, and I presume it was this connection that +brought her to the place and led to our meeting. + +If I had gone on to Jersey in that fall of '55, my life might have been +very different in many ways. I might have married some other girl, might +have had a large family of children, and the whole course of my life +might have been greatly changed. It frightens me now to think that I +might have missed the Washington life, and Whitman,... and much else +that has counted for so much with me. What I might have gained is, in +the scale, like imponderable air. + +I read my Johnson and Locke that winter and tried to write a little +in the Johnsonese buckram style. The young man to-day, under the same +conditions, would probably spend his evenings reading novels or the +magazines. I spent mine poring over "The Rambler." + + +In April I closed the school and went home, again taking a young fellow +with me. I was then practically engaged to Ursula North, and I wrote +her a poem on reaching home. About the middle of April I left home for +Cooperstown Seminary. I rode to Moresville with Jim Bouton, and as the +road between there and Stamford was so blocked with snowdrifts that the +stage could not run, I was compelled to walk the eight miles, leaving +my trunk behind. From Stamford I reached Cooperstown after an all-night +ride by stage. + +My summer at Cooperstown was an enjoyable and a profitable one. I +studied Latin, French, English literature, algebra, and geometry. If I +remember correctly, I stood first in composition over the whole school. +I joined the Websterian Society and frequently debated, and was one of +the three or four orators chosen by the school to "orate" in a grove on +the shore of the lake, on the Fourth of July. I held forth in the true +spread-eagle style. + +I entered into the sports of the school, ball-playing and rowing on the +lake, with the zest of youth. + +One significant thing I remember: I was always on the lookout for books +of essays. It was at this time that I took my first bite into Emerson, +and it was like tasting a green apple--not that he was unripe, but I +wasn't ripe for him. But a year later I tasted him again, and said, +"Why, this tastes good"; and took a bigger bite; then soon devoured +everything of his I could find. + +I say I was early on the lockout for books of essays, and I wanted the +essay to begin, not in a casual way by some remark in the first person, +but by the annunciation of some general truth, as most of Dr. Johnson's +did. I think I bought Dick's works on the strength of his opening +sentence--"Man is a compound being." + +As one's mind develops, how many changes in taste he passes through! +About the time of which I am now writing, Pope was my favorite poet. +His wit and common sense appealed to me. Young's "Night Thoughts" also +struck me as very grand. Whipple seemed to me a much greater writer than +Emerson. Shakespeare I did not come to appreciate till years later, and +Chaucer and Spenser I have never learned to care for. + +I am sure the growth of my literary taste has been along the right +lines--from the formal and the complex, to the simple and direct. +Now, the less the page seems written, that is, the more natural and +instinctive it is, other things being equal, the more it pleases me. I +would have the author take no thought of his style, as such; yet if his +sentences are clothed like the lilies of the field, so much the better. +Unconscious beauty that flows inevitably and spontaneously out of the +subject, or out of the writer's mind, how it takes us! + +My own first attempts at writing were, of course, crude enough. It took +me a long time to put aside all affectation and make-believe, if I have +ever quite succeeded in doing it, and get down to what I really saw +and felt. But I think now I can tell dead wood in my writing when I see +it--tell when I fumble in my mind, or when my sentences glance off and +fail to reach the quick. + + +(In August, 1902, Mr. Burroughs wrote me of a visit to Cooperstown, +after all these years: "I found Cooperstown not much changed. The lake +and the hills were, of course, the same as I had known them forty-six +years ago, and the main street seemed but little altered. Of the old +seminary only the foundations were standing, and the trees had so grown +about it that I hardly knew the place. I again dipped my oar in the +lake, again stood beside Cooper's grave, and threaded some of the +streets I had known so well. I wished I could have been alone there.... +I wanted to muse and dream, and invoke the spirit of other days, but the +spirits would not rise in the presence of strangers. I could not quite +get a glimpse of the world as it appeared to me in those callow days. It +was here that I saw my first live author (spoken of in my 'Egotistical +Chapter') and first dipped into Emerson." + +After leaving the Seminary at Cooperstown in July of 1856, the young +student worked on the home farm in the Catskills until fall, when he +began teaching school at Buffalo Grove, Illinois, where he taught until +the following spring, returning East to marry, as he says, "the girl I +left behind me." + +He then taught in various schools in New York and New Jersey, until the +fall of 1863. As a rule, in the summer he worked on the home farm. + +During this period he was reading much, and trying his hand at writing. +There was a short intermission in his teaching, when he invested his +earnings in a patent buckle, and for a brief period he had dreams of +wealth. But the buckle project failed, the dreams vanished, and he began +to read medicine, and resumed his teaching. + +From 1859 to 1862 he was writing much, on philosophical subjects mainly. +It was in 1863 that he first became interested in the birds.--C. B.) + + +Ever since the time when in my boyhood I saw the strange bird in the +woods of which I have told you, the thought had frequently occurred to +me, "I shall know the birds some day." But nothing came of the thought +and wish till the spring of '63, when I was teaching school near West +Point. In the library of the Military Academy, which I frequently +visited of a Saturday, I chanced upon the works of Audubon. I took fire +at once. It was like bringing together fire and powder! I was ripe for +the adventure; I had leisure, I was in a good bird country, and I +had Audubon to stimulate me, as well as a collection of mounted birds +belonging to the Academy for reference. How eagerly and joyously I took +up the study! It fitted in so well with my country tastes and breeding; +it turned my enthusiasm as a sportsman into a new channel; it gave to my +walks a new delight; it made me look upon every grove and wood as a +new storehouse of possible treasures. I could go fishing or camping +or picknicking now with my resources for enjoyment doubled. That first +hooded warbler that I discovered and identified in a near-by bushy field +one Sunday morning--shall I ever forget the thrill of delight it gave +me? And when in August I went with three friends into the Adirondacks, +no day or place or detention came amiss to me; new birds were calling +and flitting on every hand; a new world was opened to me in the midst of +the old. + +At once I was moved to write about the birds, and I began my first +paper, "The Return of the Birds," that fall, and finished it in +Washington, whither I went in October, and where I lived for ten years. +Writing about the birds and always treating them in connection with the +season and their environment, was, while I was a government clerk, a +kind of vacation. It enabled me to live over again my days amid the +sweet rural things and influences. The paper just referred to is, as you +may see, mainly written out of my memories as a farm boy. The enthusiasm +which Audubon had begotten in me quickened and gave value to all my +youthful experiences and observations of the birds. + + +(This brings us to the time when our subject is fairly launched on early +manhood. He has regular employment--a clerkship in the office of the +Comptroller of the Currency, which, if not especially congenial in +itself, affords him leisure to do the things he most wishes to do. He is +even now growing in strength and efficiency as an essayist.--C. B.) + + + + +SELF-ANALYSIS + + +March, 1909 + +My Dear Friend,-- + +You once asked me how, considering my antecedents and youthful +environment, I accounted for myself; what sent me to Nature, and to +writing about her, and to literature generally. I wish I could answer +you satisfactorily, but I fear I cannot. I do not know, myself; I can +only guess at it. + +I have always looked upon myself as a kind of sport; I came out of +the air quite as much as out of my family. All my weaknesses and +insufficiencies--and there are a lot of them--are inherited, but of +my intellectual qualities, there is not much trace in my immediate +forbears. No scholars or thinkers or lovers of books, or men of +intellectual pursuits for several generations back of me--all obscure +farmers or laborers in humble fields, rather grave, religiously inclined +men, I gather, sober, industrious, good citizens, good neighbors, +correct livers, but with no very shining qualities. My four brothers +were of this stamp--home-bodies, rather timid, non-aggressive men, +somewhat below the average in those qualities and powers that insure +worldly success--the kind of men that are so often crowded to the +wall. I can see myself in some of them, especially in Hiram, who had +daydreams, who was always going West, but never went; who always wanted +some plaything--fancy sheep or pigs or poultry; who was a great lover of +bees and always kept them; who was curious about strange lands, but who +lost heart and hope as soon as he got beyond the sight of his native +hills; and who usually got cheated in every bargain he made. Perhaps +it is because I see myself in him that Hiram always seemed nearer to me +than any of the rest. I have at times his vagueness, his indefiniteness, +his irresolution, and his want of spirit when imposed upon. + +Poor Hiram! One fall in his simplicity he took his fancy Cotswold sheep +to the State Fair at Syracuse, never dreaming but that a farmer entirely +outside of all the rings and cliques, and quite unknown, could get the +prize if his stock was the best. I can see him now, hanging about the +sheep-pens, homesick, insignificant, unnoticed, living on cake and pie, +and wondering why a prize label was not put upon his sheep. Poor Hiram! +Well, he marched up the hill with his sheep, and then he marched down +again, a sadder and, I hope, a wiser man. + +Once he ordered a fancy rifle, costing upwards of a hundred dollars, of +a gunsmith in Utica. When the rifle came, it did not suit him, was not +according to specifications; so he sent it back. Not long after that the +man failed and no rifle came, and the money was not returned. Then Hiram +concluded to make a journey out there. I was at home at the time, and +can see him yet as he started off along the road that June day, off for +Utica on foot. Again he marched up the hill, and then marched down, and +no rifle or money ever came. + +For years he had the Western fever, and kept his valise under his bed +packed ready for the trip. Once he actually started and got as far as +White Pigeon, Michigan. There his courage gave out, and he came back. +Still he kept his valise packed, but the end of his life's journey came +before he was ready to go West again. + +Hiram, as you know, came to live with me at Slabsides during the last +years of his life. He had made a failure of it on the old farm, after +I had helped him purchase it; nearly everything had gone wrong, indoors +and out; and he was compelled to give it up. So he brought his forty or +more skips of bees to West Park and lived with me, devoting himself, not +very successfully, to bee-culture. He loved to "fuss" with bees. I think +the money he got for his honey looked a little more precious to him than +other money, just as the silver quarters I used to get when a boy for +the maple sugar I made had a charm and a value no quarters have ever had +in my eyes since. + +That thing in Hiram that was so appealed to by his bee-culture, and +by any fancy strain of sheep or poultry, is strong in me, too, and +has played an important part in my life. If I had not taken it out in +running after wild nature and writing about it I should probably have +been a bee-man, or a fancy-stock farmer. As it is, I have always been +a bee-lover, and have usually kept several swarms. Ordinary farming +is prosy and tiresome compared with bee-farming. Combined with +poultry-raising, it always had special attractions for me. When I was a +farm boy of twelve or thirteen years, one of our neighbors had a breed +of chickens with large topknots that filled my eye completely. My +brother and I used to hang around the Chase henyard for hours, admiring +and longing for those chickens. The impression those fowls made upon +me seems as vivid to-day as it was when first made. The topknot was +the extra touch--the touch of poetry that I have always looked for in +things, and that Hiram, in his way, craved and sought for, too. + +There was something, too, in my maternal grandfather that probably +foreshadowed the nature-lover and nature-writer. In him it took the form +of a love of angling, and a love for the Bible. He went from the Book to +the stream, and from the stream to the Book, with great regularity. I do +not remember that he ever read the newspapers, or any other books than +the Bible and the hymn-book. When he was over eighty years, old he would +woo the trout-streams with great success, and between times would pore +over the Book till his eyes were dim. I do not think he ever joined the +church, or ever made an open profession of religion, as was the wont +in those days; but he had the religious nature which he nursed upon +the Bible. When a mere boy, as I have before told you, he was a soldier +under Washington, and when the War of 1812 broke out, and one of his +sons was drafted, he was accepted and went in his stead. The half-wild, +adventurous life of the soldier suited him better than the humdrum of +the farm. From him, as I have said, I get the dash of Celtic blood in my +veins--that almost feminine sensibility and tinge of melancholy that, I +think, shows in all my books. That emotional Celt, ineffectual in some +ways, full of longings and impossible dreams, of quick and noisy +anger, temporizing, revolutionary, mystical, bold in words, timid +in action--surely that man is in me, and surely he comes from my +revolutionary ancestor, Grandfather Kelly. + +I think of the Burroughs branch of my ancestry as rather retiring, +peace-loving, solitude-loving men--men not strongly sketched in on +the canvas of life, not self-assertive, never roistering or +uproarious--law-abiding, and church-going. I gather this impression from +many sources, and think it is a correct one. + + +Oh, the old farm days! how the fragrance of them still lingers in my +heart! the spring with its farm, the returning birds, and the full, +lucid trout-streams; the summer with its wild berries, its haying, +its cool, fragrant woods; the fall with its nuts, its game, its +apple-gathering, its holidays; the winter with its school, its sport +on ice and snow, its apple-bins in the cellar, its long nights by the +fireside, its voice of fox-bounds on the mountains, its sound of flails +in the barn--how much I still dream about these things! + +But I am slow in keeping my promise to try to account for myself. Yet +all these things are a part of my antecedents; they entered into my very +blood--father and mother and brothers and sisters, and the homely life +of the farm, all entered into and became a part of that which I am. + +I am certain, as I have told you before, that I derived more from +my mother than from my father. I have more of her disposition--her +yearning, breeding nature, her subdued and neutral tones, her curiosity, +her love of animals, and of wild nature generally. Father was neither a +hunter nor a fisherman, and, I think, was rarely conscious of the beauty +of nature around him. The texture of his nature was much less fine than +that of Mother's, and he was a much easier problem to read; he was as +transparent as glass. Mother had more of the stuff of poetry in her +soul, and a deeper, if more obscure, background to her nature. That +which makes a man a hunter or a fisherman simply sent her forth in quest +of wild berries. What a berry-picker she was! How she would work to get +the churning out of the way so she could go out to the berry lot! It +seemed to heal and refresh her to go forth in the hill meadows for +strawberries, or in the old bushy bark-peelings for raspberries. The +last work she did in the world was to gather a pail of blackberries as +she returned one September afternoon from a visit to my sister's, less +than a mile away. + +I am as fond of going forth for berries as my mother was, even to this +day. Every June I must still make one or two excursions to distant +fields for wild strawberries, or along the borders of the woods for +black raspberries, and I never go without thinking of Mother. You could +not see all that I bring home with me in my pail on such occasions; +if you could, you would see the traces of daisies and buttercups and +bobolinks, and the blue skies, with thoughts of Mother and the Old Home, +that date from my youth. I usually eat some of the berries in bread and +milk, as I was wont to do in the old days, and am, for the moment, as +near a boy again as it is possible for me to be. + +(Illustration of One of Mr. Burroughs's Favorite Seats, Roxbury, New +York. From a photograph by Clifton Johnson) + +No doubt my life as a farm boy has had much to do with my subsequent +love of nature, and my feeling of kinship with all rural things. I feel +at home with them; they are bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh. It +seems to me a man who was not born and reared in the country can hardly +get Nature into his blood, and establish such intimate and affectionate +relations with her, as can the born countryman. We are so susceptible +and so plastic in youth; we take things so seriously; they enter into +and color and feed the very currents of our being. As a child I think I +must have been more than usually fluid and impressionable, and that +my affiliations with open-air life and objects were very hearty and +thorough. As I grow old I am experiencing what, I suppose, all men +experience, more or less; my subsequent days slough off, or fade away, +more and more, leaving only the days of my youth as a real and lasting +possession. + + +When I began, in my twenty-fifth or twenty-sixth year, to write about +the birds, I found that I had only to unpack the memories of the farm +boy within me to get at the main things about the common ones. I had +unconsciously absorbed the knowledge that gave the life and warmth to my +page. Take that farm boy out of my books, out of all the pages in which +he is latent as well as visibly active, and you have robbed them of +something vital and fundamental, you have taken from the soil much of +its fertility. At least, so it seems to me, though in this business of +self-analysis I know one may easily go far astray. It is probably +quite impossible correctly to weigh and appraise the many and complex +influences and elements that have entered into one's life. + +When I look back to that twilight of early youth, to that half-mythical +borderland of the age of six or seven years, or even earlier, I can +see but few things that, in the light of my subsequent life, have much +significance. One is the impression made upon me by a redbird which the +"hired girl" brought in from the woodpile, one day with a pail of chips. +She had found the bird lying dead upon the ground. That vivid bit of +color in the form of a bird has never faded from my mind, though I could +not have been more than three or four years old. + +Another bird incident, equally vivid, I have related in "Wake-Robin," +in the chapter called "The Invitation,"--the vision of the small bluish +bird with a white spot on its wing, one Sunday when I was six or seven +years old, while roaming with my brothers in the "Deacon woods" near +home. The memory of that bird stuck to me as a glimpse of a world of +birds that I knew not of. + +Still another bird incident that is stamped upon my memory must have +occurred about the same time. Some of my brothers and an older boy +neighbor and I were walking along a road in the woods when a brown +bird flew down from a bush upon the ground in front of us. "A brown +thrasher," the older boy said. It was doubtless either the veery, or the +hermit thrush, and this was my first clear view of it. Thus it appears +that birds stuck to me, impressed me from the first. Very early in my +life the coming of the bluebird, the phoebe, the song sparrow, and the +robin, in the spring, were events that stirred my emotions, and gave a +new color to the day. When I had found a bluebird's nest in the cavity +of a stump or a tree, I used to try to capture the mother bird by +approaching silently and clapping my hand over the hole; in this I +sometimes succeeded, though, of course, I never harmed the bird. I used +to capture song sparrows in a similar way, by clapping my hat over the +nest in the side of the bank along the road. + +I can see that I was early drawn to other forms of wild life, for I +distinctly remember when a small urchin prying into the private affairs +of the "peepers" in the marshes in early spring, sitting still a long +time on a log in their midst, trying to spy out and catch them in the +act of peeping. And this I succeeded in doing, discovering one piping +from the top of a bulrush, to which he clung like a sailor to a mast; I +finally allayed the fears of one I had captured till he sat in the palm +of my hand and piped--a feat I have never been able to repeat since. + +I studied the ways of the bumblebees also, and had names of my own +for all the different kinds. One summer I made it a point to collect +bumblebee honey, and I must have gathered a couple of pounds. I found it +very palatable, though the combs were often infested with parasites. The +small red-banded bumblebees that lived in large colonies in holes in +the ground afforded me the largest yields. A large bee, with a broad +light-yellow band, was the ugliest customer to deal with. It was a +fighter and would stick to its enemy like grim death, following me +across the meadow and often getting in my hair, and a few times up my +trousers leg, where I had it at as great a disadvantage as it had me. +It could stab, and I could pinch, and one blow followed the other pretty +rapidly. + + +As a child I was always looked upon and spoken of as an "odd one" in the +family, even by my parents. Strangers, and relatives from a distance, +visiting at the house, would say, after looking us all over, "That is +not your boy," referring to me, "who is he?" And I am sure I used to +look the embarrassment I felt at not being as the others were. I did not +want to be set apart from them or regarded as an outsider. As this was +before the days of photography, there are no pictures of us as children, +so I can form no opinion of how I differed in my looks from the +others. I remember hearing my parents say that I showed more of the +Kelly--Mother's family. + +I early "took to larnin'," as Father used to say, differing from my +brothers and sisters in this respect. I quickly and easily distanced +them all in the ordinary studies. I had gone through Dayball's +Arithmetic while two of my older brothers were yet in addition. +"Larnin'" came very hard to all of them except to Hiram and me, and +Hiram did not have an easy time of it, though he got through his +Dayball, and studied Greenleaf's Grammar. + +There was a library of a couple of dozen of volumes in the district, and +I used to take home books from it. They were usually books of travel or +of adventure. I remember one, especially, a great favorite, "Murphy, +the Indian Killer." I must have read this book several times. Novels, or +nature books, or natural-history books, were unknown in that library. I +remember the "Life of Washington," and I am quite certain that it was a +passage in this book that made a lasting impression upon me when I was +not more than six or seven years old. I remember the impression, though +I do not recall the substance of the passage. The incident occurred +one Sunday in summer when Hiram and a cousin of ours and I were playing +through the house, I carrying this book in my hand. From time to time +I would stop and read this passage aloud, and I can remember, as if +it were but yesterday, that I was so moved by it, so swept away by its +eloquence, that, for a moment, I was utterly oblivious to everything +around me. I was lifted out of myself, caught up in a cloud of feeling, +and wafted I know not whither. My companions, being much older than I +was, regarded not my reading. + +These exalted emotional states, similar to that just described, used +occasionally to come to me under other conditions about this time, or +later. I recall one such, one summer morning when I was walking on +the top of a stone wall that ran across the summit of one of those +broad-backed hills which you yourself know. I had in my hand a bit of a +root of a tree that was shaped much like a pistol. As I walked along the +toppling stones, I flourished this, and called and shouted and exulted +and let my enthusiasm have free swing. It was a moment of supreme +happiness. I was literally intoxicated; with what I do not know. I only +remember that life seemed amazingly beautiful--I was on the crest of +some curious wave of emotion, and my soul sparkled and flashed in the +sunlight. I have haunted that old stone wall many times since that day, +but I have never been able again to experience that thrill of joy and +triumph. The cup of life does not spontaneously bead and sparkle in +this way except in youth, and probably with many people it does not +even then. But I know from what you have told me that you have had the +experience. When one is trying to cipher out his past, and separate the +factors that have played an important part in his life, such incidents, +slight though they are, are significant. + +The day-dreams I used to indulge in when twelve or thirteen, while at +work about the farm, boiling sap in the spring woods, driving the cows +to pasture, or hoeing corn,--dreams of great wealth and splendor, of +dress and equipage,--were also significant, but not prophetic. Probably +what started these golden dreams was an itinerant quack phrenologist +who passed the night at our house when I was a lad of eight or nine. +He examined the heads of all of us; when he struck mine, he grew +enthusiastic. "This is the head for you," he said; "this boy is going +to be rich, very rich"; and much more to that effect. Riches was the one +thing that appealed to country people in those times; it was what all +were after, and what few had. Hence the confident prophesy of the old +quack made an impression, and when I began to indulge in day-dreams I +was, no doubt, influenced by it. But, as you know, it did not come true, +except in a very limited sense. Instead of returning to the Old Home in +a fine equipage, and shining with gold,--the observed of all observers, +and the envy of all enviers,--as I had dreamed, and as had been +foretold, I came back heavy-hearted, not indeed poor, but far from rich, +walked up from the station through the mud and snow unnoticed, and took +upon myself the debts against the old farm, and so provided that it +be kept in the family. It was not an impressive home-coming; it was to +assume burdens rather than to receive congratulations; it was to bow my +head rather than to lift it up. Out of the golden dreams of youth had +come cares and responsibilities. But doubtless it was best so. The +love that brought me back to the old home year after year, that made me +willing to serve my family, and that invested my native hills with such +a charm, was the best kind of riches after all. + + +As a youth I never went to Sunday-school, and I was not often seen +inside the church. My Sundays were spent rather roaming in the woods and +fields, or climbing to "Old Clump," or, in summer, following the streams +and swimming in the pools. Occasionally I went fishing, though this was +to incur parental displeasure--unless I brought home some fine trout, in +which case the displeasure was much tempered. I think this Sunday-school +in the woods and fields was, in my case, best. It has always seemed, +and still seems, as if I could be a little more intimate with Nature +on Sunday than on a week-day; our relations were and are more ideal, a +different spirit is abroad, the spirit of holiday and not of work, and +I could in youth, and can now, abandon myself to the wild life about me +more fully and more joyously on that day than on any other. + +The memory of my youthful Sundays is fragrant with wintergreens, black +birch, and crinkle-root, to say nothing of the harvest apples that grew +in our neighbor's orchard; and the memory of my Sundays in later years +is fragrant with arbutus, and the showy orchid, and wild strawberries, +and touched with the sanctity of woodland walks and hilltops. What day +can compare with a Sunday to go to the waterfalls, or to "Piney Ridge," +or to "Columbine Ledge," or to stroll along "Snake Lane"? What sweet +peace and repose is over all! The snakes in Snake Lane are as free from +venom as are grasshoppers, and the grasshoppers themselves fiddle and +dance as at no other time. Cherish your Sundays. I think you will read +a little deeper in "Nature's infinite book of secrecy" on Sunday than on +Monday. I once began an essay the subject of which was Sunday, but never +finished it. I must send you the fragment. + + +But I have not yet solved my equation--what sent me to nature? What made +me take an intellectual interest in outdoor things? The precise value of +the _x_ is hard to find. My reading, no doubt, had much to do with it. +This intellectual and emotional interest in nature is in the air in our +time, and has been more or less for the past fifty years. I early read +Wordsworth, and Emerson and Tennyson and Whitman, and Saint-Pierre's +"Studies of Nature," as I have before told you. But the previous +question is, why the nature poets and nature books appealed to me. One +cannot corner this unknown quantity. I suppose I was simply made that +way--the love of nature was born in me. I suppose Emerson influenced me +most, beginning when I was about nineteen; I had read Pope and Thomson +and Young and parts of Shakespeare before that, but they did not kindle +this love of nature in me. Emerson did. Though he did not directly treat +of outdoor themes, yet his spirit seemed to blend with Nature, and to +reveal the ideal and spiritual values in her works. I think it was this, +or something like it, that stimulated me and made bird and tree and sky +and flower full of a new interest. It is not nature for its own sake +that has mainly drawn me; had it been so, I should have turned out a +strict man of science; but nature for the soul's sake--the inward world +of ideals and emotions. It is this that allies me to the poets; while it +is my interest in the mere fact that allies me to the men of science. + +I do not read Emerson much now, except to try to get myself back +into the atmosphere of that foreworld when a paradox, or a startling +affirmation, dissolved or put to flight a vast array of commonplace +facts. What a bold front he did put on in the presence of the tyrannies +of life! He stimulated us by a kind of heavenly bragging and saintly +flouting of humdrum that ceases to impress us as we grow old. Do we +outgrow him?--or do we fall away from him? I cannot bear to hear Emerson +spoken of as a back-number, and I should like to believe that the young +men of to-day find in him what I found in him fifty years ago, when he +seemed to whet my appetite for high ideals by referring to that hunger +that could "eat the solar system like gingercake." But I suspect they do +not. The world is too much with us. We are prone to hitch our wagon to +a star in a way, or in a spirit, that does not sanctify the wagon, but +debases the star. Emerson is perhaps too exceptional to take his place +among the small band of the really first-class writers of the world. +Shear him of his paradoxes, of his surprises, of his sudden inversions, +of his taking sallies in the face of the common reason, and appraise him +for his real mastery over the elements of life and of the mind, as we +do Bacon, or Shakespeare, or Carlyle, and he will be found wanting. And +yet, let me quickly add, there is something more precious and divine +about him than about any or all the others. He prepares the way for +a greater than he, prepares the mind to accept the new man, the new +thought, as none other does. + + +But how slow I am in getting at my point! Emerson took me captive. For +a time I lived and moved and had my intellectual being in him. I think I +have always had a pretty soft shell, so to speak, hardly enough lime and +grit in it, and at times I am aware that such is the fact to this day. +Well, Emerson found my intellectual shell very plastic; I took the form +of his mould at once, and could not get away from him; and, what is +more, did not want to get away from him, did not see the need of getting +away from him. Nature herself seemed to speak through him. An intense +individuality that possesses the quality of lovableness is apt to impose +itself upon us in this way. It was under this spell, as you know, that +I wrote "Expression," of which I have told you. The "Atlantic," by the +way, had from the first number been a sort of university to me. It had +done much to stimulate and to shape my literary tastes and ambitions. I +was so eager for it that when I expected it in the mail I used to run +on my way to the post office for it. So, with fear and trembling, I sent +that essay to its editor. Lowell told a Harvard student who was an old +schoolmate of mine that when he read the paper he thought some young +fellow was trying to palm off an early essay of Emerson's upon him as +his own, and that he looked through the "Dial" and other publications in +the expectation of finding it. Not succeeding in doing so, he concluded +the young man had written it himself. It was published in November, +1860, and as the contributors' names were not given at that time, it was +ascribed to Emerson by the newspaper reviewers of that number. It went +into Poole's Index as by Emerson, and later. Professor Hill + + +(Some years ago I took it upon myself to let Professor Hill know the +real author of "Expression." He appeared grateful, though some what +chagrined, and said the error should be corrected in the next edition. +Mr. Burroughs smiled indulgently when he learned of my zeal in the +matter: "Emerson's back is broad; he could have afforded to continue to +shoulder my early blunders," he said. C. B.) + + +of Harvard, quoted a line from it in a footnote in his "Rhetoric," and +credited it to Emerson. So I had deceived the very elect. The essay had +some merit, but it reeked with the Emersonian spirit and manner. When +I came to view it through the perspective of print, I quickly saw that +this kind of thing would not do for me. I must get on ground of my own. +I must get this Emersonian musk out of my garments at all hazards. I +concluded to bury my garments in the earth, as it were, and see what my +native soil would do toward drawing it out. So I took to writing on all +manner of rural themes--sugar-making, cows, haying, stone walls. These, +no doubt, helped to draw out the rank suggestion of Emerson. I wrote +about things of which I knew, and was, therefore, bound to be more +sincere with myself than in writing upon the Emersonian themes. When a +man tells what he knows, what he has seen or felt, he is pretty sure to +be himself. When I wrote upon more purely intellectual themes, as I +did about this time for the "Leader," the Emersonian influence was more +potent, though less so than in the first "Atlantic" essay. + +Any man progresses in the formation of a style of his own in proportion +as he gets down to his own real thoughts and feelings, and ceases to +echo the thoughts and moods of another. Only thus can he be sincere; and +sincerity is the main secret of style. What I wrote from "the push of +reading," as Whitman calls it, was largely an artificial product; I had +not made it my own; but when I wrote of country scenes and experiences, +I touched the quick of my mind, and it was more easy to be real and +natural. + +I also wrote in 1860 or 1861 a number of things for the "Saturday Press" +which exhaled the Emersonian perfume. If you will look them over, +you will see how my mind was working in the leading-strings of +Analogy--often a forced and unreal Analogy. + + +December, 1907 + +My Dear Friend,-- + +You ask me to tell you more about myself, my life, how it has been with +me, etc. It is an inviting subject. How an old man likes to run on about +himself! + +I see that my life has been more of a holiday than most persons', much +more than was my father's or his father's. I have picnicked all along +the way. I have on the whole been gay and satisfied. I have had no great +crosses or burdens to bear; no great afflictions, except such as must +come to all who live; neither poverty, nor riches. I have had uniform +good health, true friends, and some congenial companions. I have done, +for the most part, what I wanted to do. Some drudgery I have had, that +is, in uncongenial work on the farm, in teaching, in clerking, and in +bank-examining; but amid all these things I have kept an outlook, an +open door, as it were, out into the free fields of nature, and a buoyant +feeling that I would soon be there. + +My farm life as a boy was at least a half-holiday. The fishing, the +hunting, the berrying, the Sundays on the hills or in the woods, the +sugar-making, the apple-gathering--all had a holiday character. But the +hoeing corn, and picking up potatoes, and cleaning the cow stables, had +little of this character. I have never been a cog in the wheel of any +great concern. I have never had to sink or lose my individuality. I have +been under no exacting master or tyrant.... I have never been a slave to +any bad habit, as smoking, drinking, over-feeding. I have had no social +or political ambitions; society has not curtailed my freedom or dictated +my dress or habits. Neither has any religious order or any clique. +I have had no axe to grind. I have gone with such men and women as +I liked, irrespective of any badge of wealth or reputation or social +prestige that they might wear. I have looked for simple pleasures +everywhere, and have found them. I have not sought for costly pleasures, +and do not want them--pleasures that cost money, or health, or time. The +great things, the precious things of my life, have been without money +and without price, as common as the air. + +Life has laid no urgent mission upon me. My gait has been a leisurely +one. I am not bragging of it; I am only stating a fact. I have never +felt called upon to reform the world. I have doubtless been culpably +indifferent to its troubles and perplexities, and sins and sufferings. +I lend a hand occasionally here and there in my own neighborhood, but I +trouble myself very little about my neighbors--their salvation or their +damnation. I go my own way and do my own work. + +I have loved nature, I have loved the animals, I have loved my +fellow-men. I have made my own whatever was fair and of good report. I +have loved the thoughts of the great thinkers and the poems of the great +poets, and the devout lines of the great religious souls. I have not +looked afar off for my joy and entertainment, but in things near at +hand, that all may have on equal terms. I have been a loving and dutiful +son, and a loving and dutiful father, and a good neighbor. I have got +much satisfaction out of life; it has been worth while. + +I have not been a burden-bearer; for shame be it said, perhaps, when +there are so many burdens to be borne by some one. I have borne those +that came in my way, or that circumstances put upon me, and have at +least pulled my own weight. I have had my share of the holiday spirit; +I have had a social holiday, a moral holiday, a business holiday. I +have gone a-fishing while others were struggling and groaning and losing +their souls in the great social or political or business maelstrom. I +know, too, I have gone a-fishing while others have labored in the slums +and given their lives to the betterment of their fellows. But I have +been a good fisherman, and I should have made a poor missionary, or +reformer, or leader of any crusade against sin and crime. I am not a +fighter, I dislike any sort of contest, or squabble, or competition, +or storm. My strength is in my calm, my serenity, my sunshine. In +excitement I lose my head, and my heels, too. I cannot carry any citadel +by storm. I lack the audacity and spirit of the stormer. I must reduce +it slowly or steal it quietly. I lack moral courage, though I have +plenty of physical and intellectual courage. I could champion Walt +Whitman when nearly every contemporaneous critic and poet were crying +him down, but I utterly lack the moral courage to put in print what he +dared to. I have wielded the "big stick" against the nature-fakers, but +I am very uncomfortable under any sort of blame or accusation. It is so +much easier for me to say yes than no. My moral fibre is soft compared +to my intellectual. I am a poor preacher, an awkward moralizer. A moral +statement does not interest me unless it can be backed up by natural +truth; it must have intellectual value. The religious dogmas interest me +if I can find a scientific basis for them, otherwise not at all. + +I shall shock you by telling you I am not much of a patriot. I have but +little national pride. If we went to war with a foreign power to-morrow, +my sympathies would be with the foreigner if I thought him in the right. +I could gladly see our navy knocked to pieces by Japan, for instance, if +we were in the wrong. I have absolutely no state pride, any more than +I have county or town pride, or neighborhood pride. But I make it up in +family or tribal affection. + +I am too much preoccupied, too much at home with myself, to feel any +interest in many things that interest my fellows. I have aimed to live +a sane, normal, healthy life; or, rather, I have an instinct for such a +life. I love life, as such, and I am quickly conscious of anything that +threatens to check its even flow. I want a full measure of it, and I +want it as I do my spring water, clear and sweet and from the original +sources. Hence I have always chafed in cities, I must live in the +country. Life in the cities is like the water there--a long way from the +original sources, and more or less tainted by artificial conditions. + +The current of the lives of many persons, I think, is like a muddy +stream. They lack the instinct for health, and hence do not know when +the vital current is foul. They are never really well. They do not look +out for personal inward sanitation. Smokers, drinkers, coffee-tipplers, +gluttonous eaters, diners-out, are likely to lose the sense of perfect +health, of a clear, pure life-current, of which I am thinking. The dew +on the grass, the bloom on the grape, the sheen on the plumage, are +suggestions of the health that is within the reach of most of us. + +The least cloud or film in my mental skies mars or stops my work. I +write with my body quite as much as with my mind. How persons whose +bread of life is heavy, so to speak,--no lightness or buoyancy or +airiness at all,--can make good literature is a mystery to me; or those +who stimulate themselves with drugs or alcohol or coffee. I would live +so that I could get tipsy on a glass of water, or find a spur in a whiff +of morning air. + +Such as my books are, the bloom of my life is in them; no morbidity, or +discontent, or ill health, or angry passion, has gone to their making. +The iridescence of a bird's plumage, we are told, is not something +extraneous; it is a prismatic effect. So the color in my books is not +paint; it is health. It is probably nothing to brag of; much greater +books have been the work of confirmed invalids. All I can say is that +the minds of these inspired invalids have not seemed to sustain so close +a relation to their bodies as my mind does to my body. Their powers seem +to have been more purely psychic. Look at Stevenson--almost bedridden +all his life, yet behold the felicity of his work! How completely his +mind must have been emancipated from the infirmities of his body! It is +clearly not thus with me. My mind is like a flame that depends entirely +upon the good combustion going on in the body. Hence, I can never write +in the afternoon, because this combustion is poorest then. + +Life has been to me simply an opportunity to learn and enjoy, and, +through my books, to share my enjoyment with others. I have had no other +ambition. I have thirsted to know things, and to make the most of them. +The universe is to me a grand spectacle that fills me with awe and +wonder and joy, and with intense curiosity. I have had no such religious +burden to bear as my fathers did--the conviction of sin, the struggle, +the agony, the despair of a soul that fears it is lost. The fear of hell +has never troubled me. Of sin in the theological sense, the imputed sin +of Adam's transgression, which so worried the old people, I have not had +a moment's concern. That I have given my heart to Nature instead of to +God, as these same old people would have said, has never cast a shadow +over my mind or conscience--as if God would not get all that belonged to +Him, and as if love of his works were not love of Him! I have acquiesced +in things as they are, and have got all the satisfaction out of them +that I could. + +Over my personal sins and shortcomings, I have not been as much troubled +as I should; none of us are. We do not see them in relief as others do; +they are like the color of our eyes, or our hair, or the shapes of our +noses. + +I do not know that it is true that my moral fibre is actually weak. If +I may draw a figure from geology, it is probably true that my moral +qualities are the softer rock in the strata that make up my being--the +easiest worn away. I see that I carry the instinct of the naturalist +into all my activities. If a thing is natural, sane, wholesome, that is +enough. Whether or not it is conventionally correct, or square with the +popular conception of morality, does not matter to me. + +I undoubtedly lack the heroic fibre. My edge is much easier turned than +was that, say, of Thoreau. Austerity would ill become me. You would see +through the disguise. Yes, there is much soft rock in my make-up. Is +that why I shrink from the wear and tear of the world? + +The religious storm and upheaval that I used to hear so much of in my +youth is impossible with me. I am liable to deep-seated enthusiasms; but +to nothing like a revolution in my inward life, nothing sudden, nothing +violent. I can't say that there has been any abandonment of my opinions +on important subjects; there has been new growth and evolution, I hope. +The emphasis of life shifts, now here, now there; it is up hill and +down dale, but there is no change of direction.... Certain deep-seated +tendencies and instincts have borne me on. I have gravitated naturally +to the things that were mine. + +I could not make anything I chose of myself; I could only be what I am. +In my youth I once "went forward" at a "protracted meeting," but nothing +came of it. The change in me that I was told would happen did not +happen, and I never went again. My nature was too equable, too +self-poised, to be suddenly overturned and broken up. + +I am not a bit gregarious. I cannot herd with other men and be "Hail, +fellow, well met!" with them as I wish I could. I am much more at home +with women; we seem to understand one another better. Put me with a +lot of men, and we naturally separate as oil and water separate. On +shipboard it is rarely that any of the men take to me, or I to them--I +do not smoke or drink or tell stories, or talk business or politics, and +the men have little use for me. On my last voyage across the Atlantic, +the only man who seemed to notice me, or to whom I felt drawn at all, +was a Catholic priest. Real countrymen, trappers, hunters, and farmers, +I seem to draw near to. On the Harriman Alaskan Expedition the two men +I felt most at home with were Fred Dellenbaugh, the artist and explorer, +and Captain Kelly, the guide. Can you understand this? Do you see why +men do not, as a rule, care for me, and why women do? + +I accuse myself of want of sociability. Probably I am too thin-skinned. +A little more of the pachyderm would help me in this respect. + +Some day I will give you more self-analysis and self-criticism. + + +I am what you might call an extemporaneous writer--I write without any +previous study or preparation, save in so far as my actual life from day +to day has prepared me for it. I do not work up my subject, or outline +it, or sketch it in the rough. When I sit down to write upon any theme, +like that of my "Cosmopolitan" article last April ("What Life Means to +Me," 1906), or of my various papers on animal intelligence, I do not +know what I have to say on the subject till I delve into my mind and see +what I find there. The writing is like fishing or hunting, or sifting +the sand for gold--I am never sure of what I shall find. All I want is a +certain feeling, a bit of leaven, which I seem to refer to some place in +my chest--not my heart, but to a point above that and nearer the centre +of the chest--the place that always glows or suffuses when one thinks of +any joy or good tidings that is coming his way. It is a kind of hunger +for that subject; it warms me a little to think of it, a pleasant thrill +runs through me; or it is something like a lover's feeling for his +sweetheart--I long to be alone with it, and to give myself to it. I am +sure I shall have a good time. Hence, my writing is the measure of my +life. I can write only about what I have previously felt and lived. I +have no legerdemain to invoke things out of the air, or to make a dry +branch bud and blossom before the eyes. I must look into my heart and +write, or remain dumb. Robert Louis Stevenson said one should be able +to write eloquently on a broomstick, and so he could. Stevenson had the +true literary legerdemain; he was master of the art of writing; he could +invest a broomstick with charm; if it remained a broomstick, it was one +on which the witches might carry you through the air at night. Stevenson +had no burden of meaning to deliver to the world; his subject never +compelled him to write; but he certainly could invest common things and +thoughts with rare grace and charm. I wish I had more of this gift, +this facility of pen, apart from any personal interest in the subject. +I could not grow eloquent over a broomstick, unless it was the stick of +the broom that used to stand in the corner behind the door in the old +kitchen at home--the broom with which Mother used to sweep the floor, +and sweep off the doorstones, glancing up to the fields and hills as she +finished and turned to go in; the broom with which we used to sweep the +snow from our boots and trouser-legs when we came from school or from +doing the chores in winter. Here would be a personal appeal that would +probably find me more inevitably than it would Stevenson. + +I have never been in the habit of doing a thing, of taking a walk, +or making an excursion, for the purpose of writing it up. Hence, when +magazine editors have asked me to go South or to California, or here +or there, to write the text to go with the pictures their artist would +make, I have felt constrained to refuse. The thought that I was expected +to write something would have burdened me and stood in the way of my +enjoyment, and unless there is enjoyment, there is no writing with me. + +I was once tempted into making an excursion for one of the magazines to +a delightful place along the Jersey coast in company with an artist, +and a memorable day it was, too, with plenty of natural and of human +interest, but nothing came of it--my perverse pen would not do what it +was expected to do; it was no longer a free pen. + +When I began observing the birds, nothing was further from my thoughts +than writing them up. I watched them and ran after them because I loved +them and was happy with them in the fields and woods; the writing came +as an afterthought, and as a desire to share my enjoyment with others. +Hence, I have never carried a notebook, or collected data about nature +in my rambles and excursions. What was mine, what I saw with love and +emotion, has always fused with my mind, so that in the heat of writing +it came back to me spontaneously. What I have lived, I never lose. + +My trip to Alaska came near being spoiled because I was expected to +write it up, and actually did so from day to day, before fusion and +absorption had really taken place. Hence my readers complain that they +do not find me in that narrative, do not find my stamp or quality as in +my other writings. And well they may say it. I am conscious that I am +not there as in the others; the fruit was plucked before it had ripened; +or, to use my favorite analogy, the bee did not carry the nectar long +enough to transform it into honey. Had I experienced a more free and +disinterested intercourse with Alaskan nature, with all the pores of my +mind open, the result would certainly have been different. I might then, +after the experience had lain and ripened in my mind for a year or two, +and become my own, have got myself into it. + +When I went to the Yellowstone National Park with President Roosevelt, +I waited over three years before writing up the trip. I recall the +President's asking me at the time if I took notes. I said, "No; +everything that interests me will stick to me like a burr." And I may +say here that I have put nothing in my writings at any time that did not +interest me. I have aimed in this to please myself alone. I believe it +to be true at all times that what does not interest the writer will not +interest his reader. + +From the impromptu character of my writings come both their merits +and their defects--their fresh, unstudied character, and their want +of thoroughness and reference-book authority. I cannot, either in +my writing or in my reading, tolerate any delay, any flagging of the +interest, any beating about the bush, even if there is a bird in it. The +thought, the description, must move right along, and I am impatient of +all footnotes and quotations and asides. + +A writer may easily take too much thought about his style, until it +obtrudes itself upon the reader's attention. I would have my sentences +appear as if they had never taken a moment's thought of themselves, nor +stood before the study looking-glass an instant. In fact, the less a +book appears written, the more like a spontaneous product it is, the +better I like it. This is not a justification of carelessness or haste; +it is a plea for directness, vitality, motion. Those writers who are +like still-water fishermen, whose great virtues are patience and a +tireless arm, never appealed to me any more than such fishing ever did. +I want something more like a mountain brook--motion, variety, and the +furthest possible remove from stagnation. + +Indeed, where can you find a better symbol of good style in +literature than a mountain brook after it is well launched towards the +lowlands--not too hurried, and not too loitering--limpid, musical, but +not noisy, full but not turbid, sparkling but not frothy, every shallow +quickly compensated for by a deep reach of thought; the calm, lucid +pools of meaning alternating with the passages of rapid description, of +moving eloquence or gay comment--flowing, caressing, battling, as the +need may be, loitering at this point, hurrying at that, drawing together +here, opening out there--freshness, variety, lucidity, power. + + +(We wish that, like the brook, our self-analyst would "go on forever"; +but his stream of thought met some obstacle when he had written thus +far, and I have never been able to induce it to resume its flow. I have, +there-fore, selected a bit of self-analysis from Mr. Burroughs's diary +of December, 1884, with which to close this subject. C.B.) + + +I have had to accomplish in myself the work of several generations. +None of my ancestors were men or women of culture; they knew nothing of +books. I have had to begin at the stump, and to rise from crude things. +I have felt the disadvantages which I have labored under, as well as the +advantages. The advantages are, that things were not hackneyed with me, +curiosity was not blunted, my faculties were fresh and eager--a kind of +virgin soil that gives whatever charm and spontaneity my books possess, +also whatever of seriousness and religiousness. The disadvantages are an +inaptitude for scholarly things, a want of the steadiness and clearness +of the tone of letters, the need of a great deal of experimenting, a +certain thickness and indistinctness of accent. The farmer and laborer +in me, many generations old, is a little embarrassed in the company of +scholars; has to make a great effort to remember his learned manners and +terms. + +The unliterary basis is the best to start from; it is the virgin soil of +the wilderness; but it is a good way to the college and the library, +and much work must be done. I am near to nature and can write upon these +themes with ease and success; this is my proper field, as I well know. +But bookish themes--how I flounder about amid them, and have to work and +delve long to get down to the real truth about them in my mind! + +In writing upon Emerson, or Arnold, or Carlyle, I have to begin, as it +were, and clear the soil, build a log hut, and so work up to the point +of view that is not provincial, but more or less metropolitan. + +My best gift as a writer is my gift for truth; I have a thoroughly +honest mind, and know the truth when I see it. My humility, or modesty, +or want of self-assertion, call it what you please, is also a help in +bringing me to the truth. I am not likely to stand in my own light; nor +to mistake my own wants and whims for the decrees of the Eternal. At +least, if I make the mistake to-day, I shall see my error to-morrow. + + +(The discerning reader can hardly fail to trace in the foregoing +unvarnished account of our subject's ancestry and environment many of +the factors which have contributed to the unique success he has attained +as a writer. Nor can he fail to trace a certain likeness, of which our +author seems unconscious, to his father. To his mother he has credited +most of his gifts as a writer, but to that childlike unselfconsciousness +which he describes in his father, we are doubtless largely indebted for +the candid self-analysis here given. + +But few writers could compass such a thing, yet he has done it simply +and naturally, as he would write on any other topic in which he was +genuinely interested. To be naked and unashamed is a condition lost by +most of us long ago, but retained by a few who still have many of the +traits of the natural man. C.B.) + + + + +THE EARLY WRITINGS OF JOHN BURROUGHS + + +I once asked Mr. Burroughs about his early writings, his beginnings. He +replied, "They were small potatoes and few in a hill, although at the +time I evidently thought I was growing some big ones. I had yet to +learn, as every young writer has to learn, that big words do not +necessarily mean big thoughts." Later he sent me these maiden efforts, +with an account of when and where they appeared. + +These early articles show that Mr. Burroughs was a born essayist. They +all took the essay form. In his reading, as he has said, any book of +essays was pretty sure to arrest his attention. He seems early to have +developed a hunger for the pure stuff of literature--something that +would feed his intellect at the same time that it appealed to his +aesthetic sense. Concerning his first essays, he wrote me:-- + + +The only significant thing about my first essays, written between the +ages of eighteen and twenty-three, is their serious trend of thought; +but the character of my early reading was serious and philosophical. +Locke and Johnson and Saint-Pierre and the others no doubt left their +marks upon me. I diligently held my mind down to the grindstone of +Locke's philosophy, and no doubt my mind was made brighter and sharper +by the process. Out of Saint-Pierre's "Studies of Nature," a work I had +never before heard of, I got something, though it would be hard for +me to say just what. The work is a curious blending of such science +as there was in his time, with sentiment and fancy, and enlivened by a +bright French mind. I still look through it with interest, and find that +it has a certain power of suggestion for me yet. + + +He confessed that he was somewhat imposed upon by Dr. Johnson's +high-sounding platitudes. "A beginner," he said, "is very apt to feel +that if he is going to write, the thing to do is to write, and get as +far from the easy conversational manner as possible. Let your utterances +be measured and stately." At first he tried to imitate Johnson, but soon +gave that up. He was less drawn to Addison and Lamb at the time, because +they were less formal, and seemingly less profound; and was slow in +perceiving that the art of good writing is the art of bringing one's +mind and soul face to face with that of the reader. How different +that early attitude from the penetrating criticism running through his +"Literary Values"; how different his stilted beginnings from his own +limpid prose as we know it, to read which is to forget that one is +reading! + + +Mr. Burroughs's very first appearance in print was in a paper in +Delaware County, New York,--the Bloomfield "Mirror,"--on May 18, 1856. +The article--"Vagaries vs. Spiritualism"--purports to be written +by "Philomath," of Roxbury, New York, who is none other than John +Burroughs, at the age of nineteen. It starts out showing impatience at +the unreasoning credulity of the superstitious mind, and continues in +a mildly derisive strain for about a column, foreshadowing the +controversial spirit which Mr. Burroughs displayed many years later +in taking to task the natural-history romancers. The production was +evidently provoked by a too credulous writer on spiritualism in a +previous issue of the "Mirror." I will quote its first paragraph:-- + + +Mr. Mirror,--Notwithstanding the general diffusion of knowledge in +the nineteenth century, it is a lamentable fact that some minds are so +obscured by ignorance, or so blinded by superstition, as to rely +with implicit confidence upon the validity of opinions which have no +foundation in nature, or no support by the deductions of reason. But +truth and error have always been at variance, and the audacity of the +contest has kept pace with the growing vigor of the contending parties. +Some straightforward, conscientious persons, whose intentions are +undoubtedly commendable, are so infatuated by the sophistical theories +of the spiritualist, or so tossed about on the waves of public opinion, +that they lose sight of truth and good sense, and, like the philosopher +who looked higher than was wise in his stargazing, tumble into a ditch. + + +In 1859 or 1860, Mr. Burroughs began to contribute to the columns of the +"Saturday Press," an organ of the literary bohemians in New York, edited +by Henry Clapp. These were fragmentary things of a philosophical cast, +and were grouped under the absurd title "Fragments from the Table of an +Intellectual Epicure," by "All Souls." There were about sixty of +these fragments. I have examined most of them; some are fanciful +and far-fetched; some are apt and felicitous; but all foreshadow the +independent thinker and observer, and show that this "Intellectual +Epicure" was feeding on strong meat and assimilating it. + +I assume that it will interest the reader who knows Mr. Burroughs only +as the practiced writer of the past fifty years to see some of his first +sallies into literature, to trace the unlikeness to his present style, +and the resemblances here and there. Accordingly I subjoin some extracts +by "All Souls" from the time-stained pages of the New York "Saturday +Press" of 1859 and 1860:-- + + +A principle of absolute truth, pointed with fact and feathered with +fancy, and shot from the bow-string of a master intellect, is one of the +most potent things under the sun. It sings like a bird of peace to those +who are not the object of its aim, but woe, woe to him who is the butt +of such terrible archery! + + +For a thing to appear heavy to us, it is necessary that we have heft +to balance against it; to appear strong, it is necessary that we have +strength; to appear great, it is necessary that we have an idea of +greatness. We must have a standard to measure by, and that standard must +be in ourselves. An ignorant peasant cannot know that Bacon is so wise. +To duly appreciate genius, you must have genius; a pigmy cannot measure +the strength of a giant. The faculty that reads and admires, is the +green undeveloped state of the faculty that writes and creates. + +A book, a principle, an individual, a landscape, or any object in +nature, to be understood and appreciated, must answer to something +within us; appreciation is the first step toward interpreting a +revelation. + +To feel terribly beaten is a good sign; the more resources a man is +conscious of, the deeper he will feel his defeat. But to feel unusually +elated at a victory indicates that our strength did not warrant it, +that we had gone beyond our resources. The boy who went crowing all day +through the streets, on having killed a squirrel with a stone, showed +plainly enough that it was not a general average of his throwing, and +that he was not in the habit of doing so well; while the rifleman picks +the hawk from the distant tree without remark or comment, and feels +vexed if he miss. + +The style of some authors, like the manners of some men, is so naked, +so artificial, has so little character at the bottom of it, that it is +constantly intruding itself upon your notice, and seems to lie there +like a huge marble counter from behind which they vend only pins and +needles; whereas the true function of style is as a means and not as an +end--to concentrate the attention upon the thought which it bears, and +not upon itself--to be so apt, natural, and easy, and so in keeping with +the character of the author, that, like the comb in the hive, it shall +seem the result of that which it contains, and to exist for _its_ sake +alone. + + +It is interesting to note, in these and other extracts, how the young +writer is constantly tracing the analogy between the facts of everyday +life about him, and moral and intellectual truths. A little later he +began to knit these fragments together into essays, and to send the +essays to the "Saturday Press" under such titles as "Deep," and "A +Thought on Culture." There is a good deal of stating the same thing in +diverse ways. The writer seems to be led on and on to seek analogies +which, for the most part, are felicitous; occasionally crudities and +unnecessarily homely comparisons betray his unformed taste. The first +three paragraphs of "Deep" give a fair sample of the essay:-- + + +Deep authors? Yes, reader, I like deep authors, that is, authors of +great penetration, reach, and compass of thought; but I must not be +bored with a sense of depth--must not be required to strain my mental +vision to see into the bottom of a well; the fountain must flow out at +the surface, though it come from the centre of the globe. Then I can +fill my cup without any artificial aid, or any painful effort. + +What we call depth in a book is often obscurity; and an author whose +meaning is got at only by severe mental exertion, and a straining of the +mind's eye, is generally weak in the backbone of him. Occasionally it is +the dullness of the reader, but oftener the obtuseness of the writer. + +A strong vigorous writer is not obscure--at any rate, not habitually so; +never leaves his reader in doubt, or compels him to mount the lever and +help to raise his burden; but clutches it in his mighty grasp and hurls +it into the air, so that it is not only unencumbered by the soil that +gave it birth, but is wholly detached and relieved, and set off against +the clear blue of his imagination. His thought is not like a rock +propped up but still sod-bound, but is like a rock held aloft, or built +into a buttress, with definite shape and outline. + + +Let me next quote from "A Thought on Culture," which appeared in the +same publication a little later, and which is the first to bear his +signature:-- + + +In the conduct of life a man should not show his knowledge, but his +wisdom; not his money--that were vulgar and foolish--but the result +of it--independence, courage, culture, generosity, manliness, and that +noble, humane, courteous air which wealth always brings to the right +sort of a man. + +A display of mere knowledge, under most circumstances, is pedantry; an +exercise of wisdom is always godlike. We cannot pardon the absence of +knowledge, but itself must be hid. We can use a thing without absolutely +showing it, we can be reasonable without boring people with our logic, +and speak correctly without parsing our sentences. + +The end of knowledge is not that a man may appear learned, any more than +the end of eating is that a man may seem to have a full stomach; but the +end of it is that a man may be wise, see and understand things as they +are; be able to adjust himself to the universe in which he is placed, +and judge and reason with the celerity of instinct, and that without +any conscious exercise of his knowledge. When we feel the food we have +eaten, something is wrong; so when a man is forever conscious of his +learning, he has not digested it, and it is an encumbrance.... + + +The evolution of this author in his use of titles is interesting. +Compare the crudity of "Vagaries vs. Spiritualism," and "Deep," for +example, with those he selects when he begins to publish his books. +"Wake-Robin," "Winter Sunshine," "Locusts and Wild Honey," "Leaf and +Tendril,"--how much they connote! Then how felicitous are the titles +of most of his essays! "Birch Browsings," "The Snow-Walkers," "Mellow +England," "Our Rural Divinity" (the cow), "The Flight of the Eagle" (for +one of his early essays on Whitman), "A Bunch of Herbs," "A Pinch of +Salt," "The Divine Soil," "The Long Road" (on evolution)--these and many +others will occur to the reader. + +Following "A Thought on Culture" was a short essay on poetry, the drift +of which is that poetry as contrasted with science must give us +things, not as they are in themselves, but as they stand related to our +experience. Our young writer is more at his ease now:-- + +Science, of course, is literal, as it ought to be, but science is not +life; science takes no note of this finer self, this duplicate on a +higher scale. Science never laughs or cries, or whistles or sings, or +falls in love, or sees aught but the coherent reality. It says a soap +bubble is a soap bubble--a drop of water impregnated with oleate of +potash or soda, and inflated with common air; but life says it is a +crystal sphere, dipped in the rainbow, buoyant as hope, sensitive as +the eye, with a power to make children dance for joy, and to bring youth +into the look of the old.... + +Who in his youth ever saw the swallow of natural history to be the +twittering, joyous bird that built mud nests beneath his father's shed, +and in the empty odorous barn?--that snapped the insects that flew up in +his way when returning at twilight from the upland farm; and that filled +his memory with such visions of summer when he first caught its note on +some bright May morning, flying up the southern valley? Describe water, +or a tree, in the language of exact science, or as they really are +in and of themselves, and what person, schooled only in nature, would +recognize them? Things must be given as they seem, as they stand +represented in the mind. Objects arrange themselves in our memory, not +according to the will, or any real quality in themselves, but as they +affect our lives and stand to us in our unconscious moments. The hills +we have dwelt among, the rocks and trees we have looked upon in all +moods and feelings, that stood to us as the shore to the sea, and +received a thousand impresses of what we lived and suffered, have +significance to us that is not accounted for by anything we can see or +feel in them. + + +Here we see the youth of twenty-three setting forth a truth which he has +sedulously followed in his own writing about nature, the following of +which accounts so largely for the wide appeal his works have made. + +Some time in 1860, Mr. Burroughs began to send essays to the New York +"Leader," a weekly paper, the organ of Tammany Hall at that time. His +first article was made up of three short essays--"World Growth," "New +Ideas," and "Theory and Practice." Here beyond question is the writer we +know: + + +The ideas that indicate the approach of a new era in history come like +bluebirds in the spring, if you have ever noticed how that is. The bird +at first seems a mere wandering voice in the air; you hear its carol on +some bright morning in March, but are uncertain of its course or origin; +it seems to come from some source you cannot divine; it falls like a +drop of rain when no cloud is visible; you look and listen, but to no +purpose. The weather changes, and it is not till a number of days that +you hear the note again, or, maybe, see the bird darting from a stake in +the fence, or flitting from one mullein-stalk to another. Its notes now +become daily more frequent; the birds multiply; they sing less in +the air and more when at rest; and their music is louder and more +continuous, but less sweet and plaintive. Their boldness increases and +soon you see them flitting with a saucy and inquiring air about barns +and outbuildings, peeping into dove-cota and stable windows, and +prospecting for a place to nest. They wage war against robins, pick +quarrels with swallows, and would forcibly appropriate their mud houses, +seeming to doubt the right of every other bird to exist but themselves. +But soon, as the season advances, domestic instincts predominate; they +subside quietly into their natural places, and become peaceful members +of the family of birds. + +So the thoughts that indicate the approach of a new era in history at +first seem to be mere disembodied, impersonal voices somewhere in the +air; sweet and plaintive, half-sung and half-cried by some obscure and +unknown poet. We know not whence they come, nor whither they tend. It +is not a matter of sight or experience. They do not attach themselves +to any person or place, and their longitude and latitude cannot be +computed. But presently they become individualized and centre in some +Erasmus, or obscure thinker, and from a voice in the air, become a +living force on the earth. They multiply and seem contagious, and assume +a thousand new forms. They grow quarrelsome and demonstrative, impudent +and conceited, crowd themselves in where they have no right, and would +fain demolish or appropriate every institution and appointment of +society. But after a time they settle into their proper relations, +incorporate themselves in the world, and become new sources of power and +progress in history. + + +This quotation is especially significant, as it shows the writer's +already keen observation of the birds, and his cleverness in +appropriating these facts of nature to his philosophical purpose. How +neatly it is done! Readers of "Wake-Robin" will recognize a part of +it in the matchless description of the bluebird which is found in the +initial essay of that book. + +In 1860, in the "Leader," there also appeared a long essay by Mr. +Burroughs, "On Indirections." This has the most unity and flow of +thought of any thus far. It is so good I should like to quote it all. +Here are the opening paragraphs:-- + + +The South American Indian who discovered the silver mines of Potosi by +the turning up of a bush at the roots, which he had caught hold of to +aid his ascent while pursuing a deer up a steep hill, represents very +well how far intention and will are concerned in the grand results +that flow from men's lives. Every schoolboy knows that many of the most +valuable discoveries in science and art were accidental, or a kind of +necessity, and sprang from causes that had no place in the forethought +of the discoverer. The ostrich lays its eggs in the sand, and the sun +hatches them; so man puts forth an effort and higher powers second him, +and he finds himself the source of events that he had never conceived or +meditated. Things are so intimately connected and so interdependent, +the near and the remote are so closely related, and all parts of the +universe are so mutually sympathetic, that it is impossible to tell what +momentous secrets may lurk under the most trifling facts, or what grand +and beautiful results may be attained through low and unimportant +means. It seems that Nature delights in surprise, and in underlying our +careless existences with plans that are evermore to disclose themselves +to us and stimulate us to new enterprise and research. The simplest act +of life may discover a chain of cause and effect that binds together the +most remote parts of the system. We are often nearest to truth in some +unexpected moment, and may stumble upon that while in a careless mood +which has eluded our most vigilant and untiring efforts. Men have seen +deepest and farthest when they opened their eyes without any special +aim, and a word or two carelessly dropped by a companion has revealed to +me a truth that weeks of study had failed to compass.... + +Nature will not be come at directly, but indirectly; all her ways are +retiring and elusive, and she is more apt to reveal herself to her +quiet, unobtrusive lover, than to her formal, ceremonious suitor. A man +who goes out to admire the sunset, or to catch the spirit of field and +grove, will very likely come back disappointed. A bird seldom sings when +watched, and Nature is no coquette, and will not ogle and attitudinize +when stared at. The farmer and traveler drink deepest of this cup, +because it is always a surprise and comes without forethought or +preparation. No insulation or entanglement takes place, and the +soothing, medicinal influence of the fields and the wood takes +possession of us as quietly as a dream, and before we know it we are +living the life of the grass and the trees. + + +How unconsciously here he describes his own intercourse with Nature! And +what an unusual production for a youth of twenty-three of such meagre +educational advantages! + +In 1862, in an essay on "Some of the Ways of Power," which appeared +in the "Leader," he celebrated the beauty and completeness of nature's +inexorable laws:-- + + +There is an evident earnestness and seriousness in the meaning of +things, and the laws that traverse nature and our own being are as fixed +and inexorable, though, maybe, less instantaneous and immediate in their +operation, as the principle of gravitation, and are as little disposed +to pardon the violator or adjourn the day of adjudication. + +There seems to be this terrible alternative put to every man on entering +the world, _conquer or be conquered_. It is what the waves say to the +swimmer, "Use me or drown"; what gravity says to the babe, "Use me or +fall"; what the winds say to the sailor, "Use me or be wrecked"; what +the passions say to every one of us, "Drive or be driven." Time in its +dealings with us says plainly enough, "Here I am, your master or your +servant." If we fail to make a good use of time, time will not fail to +make a bad use of us. The miser does not use his money, so his money +uses him; men do not govern their ambition, and so are governed by +it.... + +These considerations are valuable chiefly for their analogical +import. They indicate a larger truth. Man grows by conquering his +limitations--by subduing new territory and occupying it. He commences +life on a very small capital; his force yet lies outside of him, +scattered up and down in the world like his wealth--in rocks, in trees, +in storms and flood, in dangers, in difficulties, in hardships,--in +short, in whatever opposes his progress and puts on a threatening front. +The first difficulty overcome, the first victory gained, is so much +added to his side of the scale--so much reinforcement of pure power. + + +I have said elsewhere that Mr. Burroughs has written himself into his +books. We see him doing this in these early years; he was an earnest +student of life at an age when most young men would have been far less +seriously occupied. Difficulties and hardships were roundabout him, his +force was, indeed, "scattered up and down in the world, in rocks and +trees," in birds and flowers, and from these sources he was even then +wresting the beginnings of his successful career. + +It was in November, 1860, when twenty-three years of age, that he made +his first appearance in the pages of the "Atlantic Monthly," in the +essay "Expression," comments upon which by its author I have already +quoted. At that time he was under the Emersonian spell of which he +speaks in his autobiographical sketch. Other readers and lovers of +Emerson had had similar experiences. Brownlee Brown, an "Atlantic" +contributor (of "Genius" and "The Ideal Tendency," especially), was a +"sort of refined and spiritualized Emerson, without the grip and gristle +of the master, but very pleasing and suggestive," Mr. Burroughs says. +The younger writer made a pilgrimage to the home of Brownlee Brown in +the fall of 1862, having been much attracted to him by the above-named +essays. He found him in a field gathering turnips. They had much +interesting talk, and some correspondence thereafter. Mr. Brown admitted +that his mind had been fertilized by the Emersonian pollen, and declared +he could write in no other way. + +Concerning his own imitation of Emerson, Mr. Burroughs says:-- + + +It was by no means a conscious imitation. Had I tried to imitate him, +probably the spurious character of my essay would have deceived no +one. It was one of those unconscious imitations that so often give an +impression of genuineness.... When I began to realize how deeply Emerson +had set his stamp upon me, I said to myself: "This will never do. I must +resist this influence. If I would be a true disciple of Emerson, I must +be myself and not another. I must brace myself by his spirit, and not go +tricked out in his manner, and his spirit was _'Never imitate.'_" + + +It was this resolution, as he has before told us, that turned him to +writing on outdoor subjects. + +In rereading "Expression" recently, I was struck, not so much by +its Emersonian manner, as by its Bergsonian ideas. I had heard Mr. +Burroughs, when he came under the spell of Bergson in the summer of +1911, say that the reason he was so moved by the French philosopher was +doubtless because he found in him so many of his own ideas; and it was +with keen pleasure that I came upon these forerunners of Bergson written +before Bergson was born. + +At the time when Mr. Burroughs was dropping the Emersonian manner, +and while his style was in the transition stage, he wrote an essay on +"Analogy," and sent it also to the "Atlantic," receiving quite a damper +on his enthusiasm when Lowell, the editor, returned it. But he sent it +to the old "Knickerbocker Magazine," where it appeared in 1862. Many +years later he rewrote it, and it was accepted by Horace Scudder, then +the "Atlantic's" editor; in 1902, after rewriting it the second time, he +published it in "Literary Values." + + +Because of the deep significance of them at this time in the career of +Mr. Burroughs, I shall quote the following letters received by him +from David A. Wasson, a Unitarian clergyman of Massachusetts, and a +contributor to the early numbers of the "Atlantic." Their encouragement, +their candor, their penetration, and their prescience entitle them to +a high place in an attempt to trace the evolution of our author. One +readily divines how much such appreciation and criticism meant to the +youthful essayist. + + +Groveland, Mass., May 21, 1860 + +Mr. Burroughs,-- + +My Dear Sir,--Let me tell you at the outset that I have for five years +suffered from a spinal hurt, from which I am now slowly recovering, +but am still unable to walk more than a quarter of a mile or to write +without much pain. I have all the will in the world to serve you, but, +as you will perceive, must use much brevity in writing. + +"Expression" I do not remember,--probably did not read,--for I read +no periodical literature--not even the "Atlantic," which is the best +periodical I know--unless my attention is very especially called to it, +and often, to tell the truth, do not heed the call when it is given. +Where I am at present I have not access to back numbers of the +"Atlantic," but shall have soon. The essay that you sent me I read +carefully twice, but unfortunately left it in Boston, where it reached +me. I can therefore only speak of it generally. It certainly shows +in you, if my judgment may be trusted, unusual gifts of pure +intellect--unusual, I mean, among scholars and literary men; and the +literary execution is creditable, though by no means of the same grade +with the mental power evinced. You must become a fine literary worker +to be equal to the demands of such an intellect as yours. For the +deeper the thought, the more difficult to give it a clear and attractive +expression. You can write so as to command attention. I am sure you can. +Will you? that is the only question. Can you work and wait long enough? +Have you the requisite patience and persistency? If you have, there is +undoubtedly an honorable future before you. + +But I will not conceal from you that I think you too young to have +written "numerous essays" of the class you attempt, or to publish a +book consisting of such. No other kind of writing requires such mental +maturity; stories may be written at any age, though good ones are seldom +written early. Even poems and works of art have been produced by some +Raphael or Milton at a comparatively early season of life, and have not +given shame to the author at a later age; though this is the exception, +not the rule. But the purely reflective essay belongs emphatically to +maturer life. Your twenty-four years have evidently been worth more +to you than the longest life to most men; but my judgment is that you +should give your genius more time yet, and should wait upon it with more +labor. This is my frank counsel. I will respect you so much as to offer +it without disguise. Let me fortify it by an example or two. Mr. Emerson +published nothing, I think, until he was past thirty, and his brother +Charles, now dead, who was considered almost superior to him, maintained +that it is almost a sin to go into print sooner. Yet both these had all +possible educational advantages, and were familiar with the best books +and the best results of American culture from infancy almost. I myself +printed nothing--saving some poetical indiscretions--until I was +twenty-seven, and this was only a criticism on Dr. Isaac Barrow--not a +subject, you see, that made great demands upon me. Two years later an +article on Lord Bacon, for which I had been indirectly preparing more +than two years, and directly at least one; and even then I would say +little respecting his philosophy, and confined myself chiefly to a +portraiture of his character as a man. At thirty-two years of age I sent +to press an essay similar in character to those I write now--and am at +present a little ashamed of it. I am now thirty-nine years old, and all +that I have ever put in print would not make more than one hundred +and thirty or one hundred and forty pages in the "Atlantic." Upon +reflection, however, I will say two hundred pages, including pamphlet +publications. I would have it less rather than more. But for this +illness it would have been even less, for this has led me to postpone +larger enterprises, which would have gone to press much later, and +prepare shorter articles for the "Atlantic." Yet my literary interest +began at a very early age. + +In writing essays such as it seems to me you have a genius for, I +require:-- + +1. That one should get the range--the largest _range_--of the laws he +sets forth. This is the _sine qua num_. Every primary law goes through +heaven and earth. Go with it. This is the business and privilege of +intellect. + +2. When one comes to writing, let his discourse have a beginning and an +end. Do not let the end of his essay be merely the end of his sheet, +or the place where he took a notion to stop writing, but let it be +necessary. Each paragraph, too, should represent a distinct advance, +a clear step, in the exposition of his thought. I spare no labor in +securing this, and reckon no labor lost that brings me toward this +mark. I reckon my work ill done if a single paragraph, yes, or a single +sentence, can be transposed without injuring the whole. + +3. Vivid expression must be sought, must be labored for unsparingly. +This you, from your position, will find it somewhat hard to attain, +unless you have peculiar aptitude for it. Expression in the country is +far less vivacious than in cities. + +I have spoken frankly; now you must decide for yourself. You have mental +power enough; if you have accessory qualities (which I think you must +possess), you cannot fail to make your mark. + +The brevity that I promised you will not find in this letter, but you +will find haste enough to make up for the lack of it. + +If now, after the foregoing, you feel any inclination to send me the +essay on "Analogy" (capital subject), pray do so. I will read it, and if +I have anything to say about it, will speak as frankly as above. + +I shall be in this place--Groveland, Mass.--about three weeks; after +that in Worcester a short while. + +Very truly yours, + +DAVID A. WASSON. + + +Groveland, Mass., June 18, 1862. + +Mr. Burroughs,-- + +My Dear Sir,-- + +I am sorry to have detained your MS. so long, but part of the time I +have been away, and during the other portion of it, the fatigue that I +must undergo was all that my strength would bear. + +I read your essay carefully in a few days after receiving it and laid +it aside for a second perusal. Now I despair of finding time for such +a second reading as I designed, and so must write you at once my +impressions after a single reading. + +The inference concerning your mind that I draw from your essay enhances +the interest I previously felt in you. All that you tell me of yourself +has the same effect. You certainly have high, very high, mental power; +and the patience and persistency that you must have shown hitherto +assures me that you will in future be equal to the demands of your +intellect. As to publishing what you have now written, you must judge. +The main question, is whether you will be discouraged by failure of your +book. If not, publish, if you like; and then, if the public ignores your +thought, gather up your strength again and write so that they cannot +ignore you. For, in truth, the public does not like to think; it likes +to be amused; and conceives a sort of hatred against the writer who +would force it to the use of its intellect. This is invariably the case; +it will be so with you. If the public finds anything in your work that +can be condemned, it will be but too happy to pass sentence; if it can +make out to think that you are a pretender, it will gladly do so; if it +can turn its back upon you and ignore you, its back, and nothing else, +you will surely see. And this on account of your merits. You really have +thoughts. You make combinations of your own. You have freighted your +words out of your own mental experience. You do not flatter any of the +sects by using their cant. Now, then, be sure that you have got to do +finished work, finished in every minutest particular, for years, before +your claims will be allowed. + +If you _were_ a pretender, your success in immediate prospect would +be more promising; the very difficulty is that you are not--that you +think--that the public must read you _humbly_, confessing that you have +intelligence beyond its own. I said that the general public wants to be +amused: I now add that it dearly desires to be flattered, or at least +allowed to flatter itself. Those people who have no thoughts of their +own are the very ones who hate mortally to admit to themselves that any +intelligence in the world is superior to their own. A noble nature +is indeed never so delighted as when it finds something that may be +lawfully reverenced; but all the ignoble keep up their self-complacence +by shutting their eyes to all superiority. + +I state the case strongly, as you will feel it bye and bye. Mind, I am +not a disappointed man; and have met as generous appreciation as I ought +to wish. I am not misanthropic, nor in the least soured. I say all this, +not _against_ the public, but _for_ you. + +Now, then, as to the essay. It is rich in thought. Everywhere are the +traces of a penetrating and sincere intellect. Much of the expression +is also good. The faults of it, _me judice_, are as follows: The +introduction I think too long. I should nearly throw away the first five +pages. Your true beginning I think to be near the bottom of the sixth +page, though the _island_ in the middle paragraph of that page is too +fine to be lost. From the sixth to about the twentieth I read with +hearty pleasure. Then begin subordinate essays in illustration of your +main theme. These are good in themselves, but their subordination is a +little obscured. I think careless readers--and most of your readers, be +sure, will be careless--will fail to perceive the connection. You are +younger than I, and will hope more from your readers; but I find even +superior men slow, _slow_, SLOW to understand--missing your point so +often! I think the relationship must be brought out more strongly, +and some very good sentences must be thrown out because they are more +related to the subordinate than the commanding subject. This is about +all that I have to say. Sometimes your sentences are a little heavy, but +you will find, little by little, happier terms of expression. I do not +in the least believe that you cannot in time write as well as I. What I +have done to earn expression I know better than you The crudities that I +have outgrown or outlabored, I also know. + +You must be a little less careless about your spelling, simply because +these slips will discredit your thought in the eyes of superficial +critics. + +You understand, of course, that I speak above of the general public--not +of the finer natures, who will welcome you with warm hands. + +I fear that the results of my reading will not correspond to your +wishes, and that it was hardly worth your while to send me your MS. But +I am obliged to you for informing me of your existence, for I augur good +for my country from the discovery of every such intelligence as yours, +and I pledge to you my warm interest and regard. + +Very cordially yours, + +David A. Wasson + + +Worcester, Sept. 29, 1862, + +My Dear Mr. Burroughs,-- + +To the medicine proposition I say. Yes. A man of your tastes and mental +vigor should be able to do some clean work in that profession. I know +not of any other established profession that allows a larger scope of +mind than this. There is some danger of materialism, but this you have +already weaponed yourself against, and the scientific studies that come +in the line of the profession will furnish material for thought and +expression which I am sure you will know well how to use. + +I am glad if my suggestions about your essay proved of some service to +you. There is thought and statement in it which will certainly one day +come to a market. The book, too, all in good season. Life for you +is very long, and you can take your time. Take it by all means. Give +yourself large leisure to do your best. I am about setting up my +household gods in Worcester. This makes me in much haste, and therefore +without another word I must say that I shall always be glad to hear from +you, and that I am always truly your friend. + +D. A. Wasson + + +Of the early nature papers which Mr. Burroughs wrote for the New York +"Leader," and which were grouped under the general title, "From the +Back Country," there were five or six in number, of two or three columns +each. One on "Butter-Making," of which I will quote the opening passage, +fairly makes the mouth water:-- + + +With green grass comes golden butter. With the bobolinks and the +swallows, with singing groves, and musical winds, with June,--ah, yes! +with tender, succulent, gorgeous June,--all things are blessed. The +dairyman's heart rejoices, and the butter tray with its virgin treasure +becomes a sight to behold. There lie the rich masses, fold upon fold, +leaf upon leaf, fresh, sweet, and odorous, just as the ladle of the +dairymaid dipped it from the churn, sweating great drops of buttermilk, +and looking like some rare and precious ore. The cool spring water is +the only clarifier needed to remove all dross and impurities and bring +out all the virtues and beauties of this cream-evolved element. How firm +and bright it becomes, how delicious the odor it emits! what vegetarian +ever found it in his heart, or his palate either, to repudiate butter? +The essence of clover and grass and dandelions and beechen woods is +here. How wonderful the chemistry that from elements so common and near +at hand produces a result so beautiful and useful! Eureka! Is not this +the alchemy that turns into gold the commonest substances? How can +transformation be more perfect? + + +During the years of this early essay-writing, Mr. Burroughs was teaching +country schools in the fall and winter, and working on the home farm +in summer; at the same time he was reading serious books and preparing +himself for whatever was in store for him. He read medicine for only +three months, in the fall of 1862, and then resumed teaching. His first +magazine article about the birds was written in the summer or fall of +1863, and appeared in the "Atlantic" in the spring of 1885. He learned +from a friend to whom Mr. Sanborn had written that the article had +pleased Emerson. + +It was in 1864, while in the Currency Bureau in Washington, that he +wrote the essays which make up his first nature book, "Wake-Robin." His +first book, however, was not a nature book, but was "Walt Whitman as +Poet and Person." It was published in 1867, preceding "Wake-Robin" by +four years. It has long been out of print, and is less known than his +extended, riper work, "Whitman, A. Study," written in 1896. + +A record of the early writings of Mr. Burroughs would not be complete +without considering also his ventures into the field of poetry. In the +summer of 1860 he wrote and printed his first verses (with the exception +of some still earlier ones written in 1856 to the sweetheart who became +his wife), which were addressed to his friend and comrade E. M. Allen, +subsequently the husband of Elizabeth Akers, the author of "Backward, +turn backward, O Time, in your flight." The lines to E. M. A. were +printed in the "Saturday Press." Because they are the first of our +author's verses to appear in print, I quote them here:-- + + + TO E. M. A. + + A change has come over nature + Since you and June were here; + The sun has turned to the southward + Adown the steps of the year. + + The grass is ripe in the meadow, + And the mowers swing in rhyme; + The grain so green on the hillside + Is in its golden prime. + + No more the breath of the clover + Is borne on every breeze, + No more the eye of the daisy + Is bright on meadow leas. + + The bobolink and the swallow + Have left for other clime-- + They mind the sun when he beckons + And go with summer's prime. + + Buttercups that shone in the meadow + Like rifts of golden snow, + They, too, have melted and vanished + Beneath the summer's glow. + + Still at evenfall in the upland + The vesper sparrow sings, + And the brooklet in the pasture + Still waves its glassy rings. + + And the lake of fog to the southward + With surges white as snow-- + Still at morn away in the distance + I see it ebb and flow. + + But a change has come over nature, + The youth of the year has gone; + A grace from the wood has departed, + And a freshness from the dawn. + + +Another poem, "Loss and Gain," was printed in the New York "Independent" +about the same time. + + + LOSS AND GAIN + + The ship that drops behind the rim + Of sea and sky, so pale and dim, + Still sails the seas + With favored breeze, + Where other waves chant ocean's hymn. + + The wave that left this shore so wide, + And led away the ebbing tide, + Is with its host + On fairer coast, + Bedecked and plumed in all its pride. + + The grub I found encased in clay + When next I came had slipped away + On golden wing, + With birds that sing, + To mount and soar in sunny day. + + No thought or hope can e'er be lost-- + The spring will come in spite of frost. + Go crop the branch + Of maple stanch, + The root will gain what you exhaust. + + The man is formed as ground he tills-- + Decay and death lie 'neath his sills. + The storm that beats, + And solar heats, + Have helped to form whereon he builds. + + Successive crops that lived and grew, + And drank the air, the light, the dew, + And then deceased, + His soil increased + In strength, and depth, and richness, too. + + From slow decay the ages grow, + From blood and crime the centuries blow, + What disappears + Beneath the years, + Will mount again as grain we sow. + + +These rather commonplace verses, the first showing his love for +comrades, the others his philosophical bent, were the forerunners of +that poem of Mr. Burroughs's--"Waiting"--which has become a household +treasure, often without the ones who cherish it knowing its source. +"Waiting" was Written in the fall of 1862. In response to my inquiry as +to its genesis, its author said:-- + + +I was reading medicine in the office of a country doctor at the time and +was in a rather gloomy and discouraged state of mind. My outlook upon +life was anything but encouraging. I was poor. I had no certain means +of livelihood. I had married five years before, and, at a venture, I had +turned to medicine as a likely solution of my life's problems. The Civil +War was raging and that, too, disturbed me. It sounded a call of duty +which increased my perturbations; yet something must have said to me, +"Courage! all will yet be well. You are bound to have your own, whatever +happens." Doubtless this feeling had been nurtured in me by the brave +words of Emerson. At any rate, there in a little dingy back room of Dr. +Hull's office, I paused in my study of anatomy and wrote "Waiting." I +had at that time had some literary correspondence with David A. Wasson +whose essays in the "Atlantic" I had read with deep interest. I sent +him a copy of the poem. He spoke of it as a vigorous piece of work, but +seemed to see no special merit in it. I then sent it to "Knickerbocker's +Magazine," where it was printed, in December, I think, in 1862. It +attracted no attention, and was almost forgotten by me till many years +afterwards when it appeared in Whittier's "Songs of Three Centuries." +This indorsement by Whittier gave it vogue. It began to be copied by +newspapers and religious Journals, and it has been traveling on the +wings of public print ever since. I do not think it has any great poetic +merit. The secret of its success is its serious religious strain, or +what people interpret as such. It embodies a very comfortable optimistic +philosophy which it chants in a solemn, psalm-like voice. Its sincerity +carries conviction. It voices absolute faith and trust in what, in the +language of our fathers, would be called the ways of God with man. I +have often told persons, when they have questioned me about the poem, +that I came of the Old School Baptist stock, and that these verses show +what form the old Calvinistic doctrine took in me. + + +Let me quote here the letter which Mr. Wasson wrote to the author of +"Waiting," on receiving the first autograph copy of it ever written:-- + + +Worcester, Dec. 22,1862. + +Mr. Burroughs,-- + +My Dear Sir,--I beg your pardon a thousand times for having neglected so +long to acknowledge the letter containing your vigorous verses. Excess +of work, and then a dash of illness consequent upon this excess, must be +my excuse--by your kind allowance. + +The verses are vigorous and flowing, good in sentiment, and certainly +worthy of being sent to "some paper," if you like to print them. On the +other hand, they do not indicate to me that you have any special call +to write verse. A man of your ability and fineness of structure must +necessarily be enough of a poet not to fail altogether in use of the +poetical form. But all that I know of you indicates a predominance of +reflective intellect--a habit of mind quite foreign from the lyrical. I +think it may be very good practice to compose in verse, as it exercises +you in terse and rhythmical expression; but I question whether your +vocation lies in that direction. + +After all, you must not let anything which I, or any one, may say stand +in your way, if you feel any clear leading of your genius in a given +direction. What I have said is designed to guard you against an +expenditure of power and hope in directions that may yield you but a +partial harvest, when the same ought to be sown on more fruitful fields. +I think you have unusual reflective power; and I am sure that in time +you will find time and occasion for its exercise, and will accomplish +some honorable tasks. + +Very truly yours, + +D. A. Wasson + + +It maybe fancy on my part, but I have a feeling that, all unconsciously +to Mr. Burroughs, a sentence or two in Mr. Wasson's letter of September +29, 1862, had something to do with inspiring the mood of trustfulness +and the attitude of waiting in serenity, which gave birth to this +poem:-- + + +... The book, too, all in good season. Life for you is very long, +and you can take your time. Take it by all means. Give yourself large +leisure to do your best. + + +Whether or not this is so, I am sure the sympathy and understanding of +such a man as Mr. Wasson was a godsend to our struggling writer, and was +one of the most beautiful instances in his life of "his own" coming to +him. + +"Waiting" seems to have gone all over the world. It has been several +times set to music, and its authorship has even been claimed by others. +It has been parodied, more's the pity; and spurious stanzas have +occasionally been appended to it; while an inferior stanza, which the +author dropped years ago, is from time to time resurrected by certain +insistent ones. Originally, it had seven stanzas; the sixth, discarded +by its author, ran as follows:-- + + + You flowret, nodding in the wind, + Is ready plighted to the bee; + And, maiden, why that look unkind? + For, lo! thy lover seeketh thee. + + +This stanza is a detraction from the poem as we know it, and assuredly +its author has a right to drop it. Concerning the fifth stanza, Mr. +Burroughs says he has never liked it, and has often substituted one +which he wrote a few years ago. The stanza he would reject is-- + + + 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. + + + The one he would offer instead-- + + + The law of love binds every heart, + And knits it to its utmost kin, + Nor can our lives flow long apart + From souls our secret souls would win. + + +And yet he is not satisfied with this; he says it is too subtle and +lacks the large, simple imagery of the original lines. + +The legion who cherish this poem in their hearts are justly incensed +whenever they come across a copy of it to which some one, a few years +ago, had the effrontery to add this inane stanza:-- + + + Serene I fold my hands and wait, + Whate'er the storms of life may be, + Faith guides me up to heaven's gate, + And love will bring my own to me. + + +One of Mr. Burroughs's friends (Joel Benton), himself a poet, in +an article tracing the vicissitudes of this poem, shows pardonable +indignation at the "impudence and hardihood of the unmannered meddler" +who tacked on the "heaven's gate" stanza, and adds:-- + + +The lyric as Burroughs wrote it embodies a motive, or concept, that has +scarcely been surpassed for amenability to poetic treatment, and for +touching and impressive point. Its partly elusive outlines add to its +charm. Its balance between hint and affirmation; its faith in universal +forces, and its tender yet virile expression, are all shining qualities, +apparent to the critical, and hypnotic to the general, reader. There +is nothing in it that need even stop at "heaven's gate." It permits the +deserving reader by happy instinct to go through that portal--without +waiting outside to parade his sect mark. But the force of the poem +and catholicity of its sanctions are either utterly destroyed or +ridiculously enfeebled, by capping it with a sectarian and narrowly +interpreted climax. + + +Although the poem is so well known, I shall quote it here in the form +preferred by its author;-- + + + WAITING + + 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. + + I stay my haste, I make delays, + For what avails this eager pace? + I stand amid th' eternal ways, + And what is mine shall know my face. + + Asleep, awake, by night or day, + The friends I seek are seeking me; + No wind can drive my bark astray, + Nor change the tide of destiny. + + What matter if I stand alone? + I wait with joy the coming years; + My heart shall reap where it hath sown, + And garner up its fruit of tears. + + 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. + + The stars come nightly to the sky, + The tidal wave comes to the sea; + Nor time, nor space, nor deep, nor high, + Can keep my own away from me. + + + + +A WINTER DAY AT SLABSIDES + + +"Come and go to Slabsides for over Sunday--I think we can keep warm. We +will have an old-fashioned time; I will roast a duck in the pot; it will +be great fun." + +This invitation came from Mr. Burroughs in 1911 to friends who proposed +to call on him early in December. Riverby was closed for the season, its +occupants tarrying in Poughkeepsie, but, ever ready for an adventure, +the Sage of Slabsides proposed a winter picnic at his cabin in the +hills. + +A ride of some two hours from New York brings us to West Park, where our +host awaits us. A stranger, glancing at his white hair and beard, might +credit his seventy-five years, but not when looking at his ruddy face +with the keen, bright eyes, or at his alert, vigorous movements. + +Together with blankets and a market-basket of provisions we are stowed +away in a wagon and driven up the steep, winding way; at first along a +country road, then into a wood's road with huge Silurian rocks cropping +out everywhere, showing here and there seams of quartz and patches of +moss and ferns. + +"In there," said Mr. Burroughs, pointing to an obscure path, "I had a +partridge for a neighbor. She had a nest there. I went to see her every +day till she became uneasy about it, and let me know I was no longer +welcome." + +"Yonder," he continued, indicating a range of wooded hills against the +wintry sky, "is the classic region of 'Popple Town Hill,' and over there +is 'Pang Yang.'" + +Some friendly spirit has preceded us to the cabin; a fire is burning in +the great stone fireplace, and mattresses and bedding are exposed to the +heat. Moving these away, the host makes room for us near the hearth. He +piles on the wood, and we are soon permeated by the warmth of the fire +and of the unostentatious hospitality of Slabsides. + +How good it is to be here! The city, with its rush and roar and +complexities, seems far away. How satisfying it is to strip off the +husks and get at the kernel of things! There is more chance for high +thinking when one is big enough to have plain living. How we surround +ourselves with non-essentials, how we are dominated with the "mania +of owning things"--one feels all this afresh in looking around at this +simple, well-built cabin with its few needful things close at hand, and +with life reduced to the simplest terms. One sees here exemplified the +creed Mr. Burroughs outlined several years ago in his essay "An Outlook +upon Life":-- + + +I am bound to praise the simple life, because I have lived it and found +it good.... I love a small house, plain clothes, simple living. Many +persons know the luxury of a skin bath--a plunge in the pool or the wave +unhampered by clothing. That is the simple life--direct and immediate +contact with things, life with the false wrappings torn away--the fine +house, the fine equipage, the expensive habits, all cut off. How free +one feels, how good the elements taste, how close one gets to them, how +they fit one's body and one's soul! To see the fire that warms you, or +better yet, to cut the wood that feeds the fire that warms you; to see +the spring where the water bubbles up that slakes your thirst, and to +dip your pail into it; to see the beams that are the stay of your four +walls, and the timbers that uphold the roof that shelters you; to be in +direct and personal contact with the sources of your material life; to +want no extras, no shields; to find the universal elements enough; to +find the air and the water exhilarating; to be refreshed by a morning +walk or an evening saunter; to find a quest of wild berries more +satisfying than a gift of tropic fruit; to be thrilled by the stars +at night; to be elated over a bird's nest, or over a wild flower in +spring--these are some of the rewards of the simple life. + +(Illustration of The Living-Room. From a photograph by M. H. Fanning) + +The two men were soon talking companionably. When persons of wide +reading and reflection, and of philosophic bent, who have lived long +and been mellowed by life, come together, the interchange of thought is +bound to be valuable; things are so well said, so inevitably said, that +the listener thinks he cannot forget the manner of saying; but thoughts +crowd thick and fast, comments on men and measures, on books and events, +are numerous and varied, but hard to recapture. The logs ignite, sending +out their cheering heat, the coals glow, the sparks fly upward, warmth +and radiance envelop us; but an attempt to warm the reader by the +glow of that fireside talk is almost as futile as an effort to dispel +to-day's cold by the fire of yesterday. + +A few deserted cottages perched on the rocks near by show us where the +summer neighbors of our host live, but at all seasons his wild neighbors +are the ones he hobnobs with the most; while his indoor companions are +Montaigne, Sainte-Beuve, Carlyle, Arnold, Wordsworth, Darwin, Huxley, +Emerson, Whitman, Bergson, and many others, ancient and modern. + +"I've been rereading Emerson's essay on 'Immortality' lately, evenings +in my study down there by the river," said Mr. Burroughs. "I had +forgotten it was so noble and fine--he makes much of the idea of +permanence." + +In this connection he spoke of John Fiske and his contributions to +literature, telling of the surprise he felt on first meeting Fiske +at Harvard, to see the look of the _bon vivant_ in one in whom the +intellectual and the spiritual were so prominent. Laughing, he recalled +the amusement of the college boys at Fiske's comical efforts to discover +a piece of chalk dropped during his lecture on "Immortality." Standing +on the hearth, a merry twinkle in his eyes, he recited some humorous +lines which he had written concerning the episode. + +Reverting to the question of immortality in a serious vein, he summed up +the debated question much as he has done in one of his essays,--that it +has been good to be here, and will be good to go hence; that we know not +whence we come, nor whither we go; were not consulted as to our coming, +and shall not be as to our going; but that it is all good; all for "the +glory of God;" though we must use this phrase in a larger sense than the +cramped interpretation of the theologian. All the teeming life of +the globe, the millions on millions in the microscopic world, and +the millions on millions of creatures that can be seen by the naked +eye--those who have been swept away, those here now, those who will come +after--all appearing in their appointed time and place, playing their +parts and vanishing, and to the old question "Why?" we may as well +answer, "For the glory of God"; if we will only conceive a big enough +glory, and a big enough God. His utter trust in things as they are +seemed a living embodiment of that sublime line in "Waiting"-- + + + "I stand amid the Eternal ways"; + + +and, thus standing, he is content to let the powers that be have their +way with him. + +"To all these mysteries I fall back upon the last words I heard Whitman +say, shortly before the end--commonplace words, but they sum it up: +'It's all right, John, it's all right'; but Whitman had the active, +sustaining faith in immortality-- + + 'I laugh at what you call dissolution, + And I know the amplitude of time.'" + + +As the afternoon wanes, Mr. Burroughs hangs the kettle on the crane, +broils the chops, and with a little help from one of the guests, soon +has supper on the table, a discussion of Bergson's philosophy suffering +only occasional interruptions; such as, "Where _have_ those women +(summer occupants of Slabsides) put my holder?" or, "See if there isn't +some salt in the cupboard." + +"There! I forgot to bring up eggs for breakfast, but here are other +things," he mutters as he rummages in his market-basket. "That memory of +mine is pretty tricky; sometimes I can't remember things any better than +I can find them when they are right under my nose. I've just found +a line from Emerson that I've been hunting for two days--'The worm +striving to be man.' I looked my Emerson through and through, and no +worm; then I found in Joel Benton's Concordance of Emerson that the line +was in 'May-Day'; he even cited the page, but my Emerson had no printing +on that page. I searched all through 'May-Day,' and still no worm; I +looked again with no better success, and was on the point of giving up +when I spied the worm--it almost escaped me--" + +"It must have turned, didn't it?" + +"Yes, the worm surely turned, or I never should have seen it," he +confessed. + +The feminine member of the trio wields the dish-mop while the host dries +the dishes, and the Dreamer before the fire luxuriates in the thought +that his help is not needed. + +The talk on philosophy and religion does not make the host forget +to warm sheets and blankets and put hot bricks in the beds to insure +against the fast-gathering cold. + +The firelight flickers on the bark-covered rafters, lighting up the +yellow-birch partition between living-room and bedroom downstairs, and +plays upon the rustic stairway that leads to the two rooms overhead, as +we sit before the hearth in quiet talk. Outside the moonlight floods +the great open space around the cabin, revealing outlines of the rocky +inclosure. No sounds in all that stillness without, and within only the +low voices of the friends, and the singing logs. + +Mr. Burroughs tells of his visit, in October, to the graves of his +maternal grandparents:-- + +"They died in 1854, my first season away from home, and there they have +lain for fifty-seven years, and I had never been to their graves! I'm +glad I went; it made them live again for me. How plainly I could see the +little man in his blue coat with brass buttons, with his decidedly Irish +features! And Grandmother, a stout woman, with quaint, homely ways. The +moss is on their gravestones now, and two evergreen trees wax strong +above them. I found an indigo-bird had built her nest above their +graves. I broke off the branch and brought it home." + + +"There! get up and use that water before it freezes over," the host +calls out the next morning, as, mounting the stairs, he places a pitcher +of hot water by the door. It is bitter cold, one's fingers ache, and one +wonders if, after all, it is so much fun to live in a cabin in the woods +in the dead of winter. But a crackling fire below and savory smells of +bacon and coffee reconcile one, and the day begins right merrily. + +And what a dinner the author sets before us! what fun to see him prepare +it, discussing meanwhile the glory that was Greece and the grandeur +that was Rome, recounting anecdotes of boyhood, touching on politics and +religion, on current events, on conflicting views of the vitalists and +the chemico-physicists, on this and on that, but never to the detriment +of his duck. It is true he did serenely fold his hands and wait, between +times. Then what an event to see him lift the smoking cover and try the +bird with a fork--" to see if the duck is relenting," he explains. At a +certain time he arises from a grave psychological discussion to rake out +hollow places in the coals where he buries potatoes and onions. + +"The baking of an onion," he declares, "takes all the conceit out of +him. He is sweet and humble after his baptism of fire." Then the +talk soars above ducks and onions, until he gives one of the idlers +permission to prepare the salad and lay the table. + +For a dinner to remember all one's days, commend me to a thoroughly +relented duck; a mealy, ash-baked potato; an onion (yea, several of +them) devoid of conceit, and well buttered and salted; and a salad +of Slabsides celery and lettuce; with Riverby apples and pears, and +beechnuts to complete the feast--beechnuts gathered in October up in +the Catskills, gathered one by one as the chipmunk gathers them, by the +"Laird of Woodchuck Lodge," as he is called on his native heath, though +he is one and the same with the master of Slabsides. + +We hear no sounds all the day outside the cabin but the merry calls of +chickadees, until in mid-afternoon an unwelcome "Halloa!" tells us +the wagon is come to take us down to Riverby. Reluctantly the fire is +extinguished, and the wide, hospitable door of Slabsides closes behind +us. + +Riverby, "the house that Jack built," as the builder boasted, is a +house interesting and individual, though conforming somewhat to the +conventions of the time when it was built (1874). It is as immaculate +within as its presiding genius can make it, presenting a sharp contrast +to the easy-going housekeeping of the mountain cabin. + +We tarry a few minutes in the little bark-covered study, detached from +the house and overlooking the Hudson, where Mr. Burroughs does his +writing when at home; we see the rustic summer-house near by, and the +Riverby vineyards, formerly husbanded by "the Vine-Dresser of Esopus," +as his friends used to call him; now by his son Julian, who combines, +like his father before him, grape-growing with essay-writing. + +A pleasant hour is spent in the artistic little cottage, planned and +built by the author and his son, where live Mr. Julian Burroughs and +his family. Here the grandfather has many a frolic with his three +grandchildren, who know him as "Baba." John Burroughs the younger is his +special pride. Who knows but the naturalist stands somewhat in awe of +his grandson?--for as the youngster reaches for his "Teddy," and says +sententiously, "Bear!" the elder never ventures a word about the dangers +of "sham natural history." + +Boarding the West Shore train, laden with fruit and beechnuts and +pleasant memories, we return to the city's roar and whirl, dreaming +still of the calls of chickadees in the bare woods and of quiet hours +before the fire at Slabsides. + + + + +BACK TO PEPACTON + + +There has always been a haunting suggestiveness to me about the +expression _Rue du Temps Perdu_--the Street of Lost Time. Down this +shadowy vista we all come to peer with tear-dimmed eyes sooner or later. +Usually this pensive retrospection is the premonitory sign that one is +nearing the last milestone before the downhill side of life begins. +But to some this yearning backward glance comes early; they feel its +compelling power while still in the vigor of middle life. Why this is so +it is not easy to say, but imaginative, brooding natures who live much +in their emotions are prone to this chronic homesickness for the Past, +this ever-recurring, mournful retrospect, this tender, wistful gaze into +the years that are no more. + +It is this tendency in us all as we grow older that makes us drift back +to the scenes of our youth; it satisfies a deep-seated want to look +again upon the once familiar places. We seek them out with an eagerness +wholly wanting in ordinary pursuits. The face of the fields, the hills, +the streams, the house where one was born--how they are invested with +something that exists nowhere else, wander where we will! In their +midst memories come crowding thick and fast; things of moment, critical +episodes, are mingled with the most trivial happenings; smiles and tears +and sighs are curiously blended as we stroll down the Street of Lost +Time. + +While we are all more or less under this spell of the Past, some natures +are more particularly enthralled by it, even in the very zenith of life, +showing it to be of temperamental origin rather than the outcome of the +passing years. Of such a temperament is John Burroughs. Now, when the +snows of five-and-seventy winters have whitened his head, we do not +wonder when we hear him say, "Ah! the Past! the Past has such a hold on +me!" But even before middle life he experienced this yearning, even then +confessed that he had for many years viewed everything in the light of +the afternoon's sun--"a little faded and diluted, and with a +pensive tinge." "It almost amounts to a disease," he reflects, "this +homesickness which home cannot cure--a strange complaint. Sometimes when +away from the old scenes it seems as if I must go back to them, as if I +should find the old contentment and satisfaction there in the circle +of the hills. But I know I should not--the soul's thirst can never be +slaked. My hunger is the hunger of the imagination. Bring all my dead +back again, and place me amid them in the old home, and a vague longing +and regret would still possess me." + +As early as his forty-fifth birthday he wrote in his Journal: "Indeed, +the Past begins to grow at my back like a great pack, and it seems as +if it would overwhelm me quite before I get to be really an old man. +As time passes, the world becomes more and more a Golgotha,--a place +of graves,--even if one does not actually lose by death his friends and +kindred. The days do not merely pass, we bury them; they are of us, +like us, and in them we bury our own image, a real part of ourselves." +Perhaps, among the poems of Mr. Burroughs, next to "Waiting" the verses +that have the most universal appeal are those of-- + + + THE RETURN + + He sought the old scenes with eager feet-- + The scenes he had known as a boy; + "Oh, for a draught of those fountains sweet, + And a taste of that vanished joy!" + + He roamed the fields, he wooed the streams, + His school-boy paths essayed to trace; + The orchard ways recalled his dreams, + The hills were like his mother's face. + + Oh, sad, sad hills! Oh, cold, cold hearth! + In sorrow he learned this truth-- + One may return to the place of his birth, + He cannot go back to his youth. + + +But a half-loaf is better than no bread, and Mr. Burroughs has now +yielded to this deep-seated longing for his boyhood scenes, and has gone +back to the place of his birth amid the Catskills; and one who sees him +there during the midsummer days--alert, energetic, curious concerning +the life about him--is almost inclined to think he has literally gone +back to his youth as well, for the boy in him is always coming to the +surface. + + +It was on the watershed of the Pepacton (the East Branch of the +Delaware), in the town of Roxbury, Delaware County, New York, that John +Burroughs was born, and there that he gathered much of the harvest of +his earlier books; it was there also that most of his more recent books +were written. Although he left the old scenes in his youth, his heart +has always been there. He went back many years ago and named one of his +books ("Pepacton") from the old stream, and he has now gone back and +arranged for himself a simple summer home on the farm where he first saw +the light. + +Most of his readers have heard much of Slabsides, the cabin in the +wooded hills back of the Hudson, and of his conventional home, Riverby, +at West Park, New York; but as yet the public has heard little of his +more remote retreat on his native heath. + +(Illustration of Woodchuck Lodge and Barn. From a photograph by Charles +S. Olcott) + +For several years it has been his custom to slip away to the old home in +Delaware County on one pretext or another--to boil sap in the old +sugar bush and rejoice in the April frolic of the robins; to meander +up Montgomery Hollow for trout; to gather wild strawberries in the June +meadows and hobnob with the bobolinks; to saunter in the hemlocks in +quest of old friends in the tree-tops; and--yes, truth compels me to +confess--to sit in the fields with rifle in hand and wage war against +the burrowing woodchuck which is such a menace to the clover and +vegetables of the farmer. + +In the summer of 1908, Mr. Burroughs rescued an old dwelling fast +going to decay which stood on the farm a half-mile from the Burroughs +homestead, and there, with friends, camped out for a few weeks, calling +the place, because of the neighbors who most frequented it, "Camp +Monax," or, in homelier language, "Woodchuck Lodge." In the succeeding +summers he has spent most of his time there. Though repairing and adding +many improvements, he has preserved the simple, primitive character of +the old house, has built a roomy veranda across its front, made tables, +bookcases, and other furniture of simple rustic character, and there in +summer he dwells with a few friends, as contented and serene a man as +can be found in this complicated world of to-day. There his old friends +seek him out, and new ones come to greet him. Artists and sculptors +paint and model him, and photographers carry away souvenirs of their +pilgrimages. + +In order to withdraw himself completely during his working hours from +the domestic life, Mr. Burroughs instituted a study in the hay-barn, a +few rods up the hill from the house. A rough box, the top of which +is covered with manilla paper, an old hickory chair, and a hammock +constitute his furnishings. The hay carpet and overflowing haymows yield +a fragrance most acceptable to him, and through the great doorway he +looks out upon the unfrequented road and up to Old Clump, the mountain +in the lap of which his father's farm is cradled, the mountain which he +used to climb to salt the sheep, the mountain which is the haunt of the +hermit thrush. (His nieces and nephews at the old home always speak of +this songster as "Uncle John's bird.") + +(Illustration of Mr. Burroughs in the Hay-Barn Study, Woodchuck Lodge. +From a photograph by R. J. H. DeLoach) + +As I watched Mr. Burroughs start out morning after morning with his +market-basket of manuscripts on his arm, and briskly walk to his rude +study, I asked myself, "Is there another literary man anywhere, now +that Tolstoy has gone, who is so absolutely simple and unostentatious in +tastes and practice as is John Burroughs?" How he has learned to +strip away the husks and get at the kernels! How superbly he ignores +non-essentials! how free he is from the tyranny of things! There in the +comfort of the hills among which his life began, with his friends around +him, he rejoices in the ever-changing face of Nature, enjoys the fruits +of his garden, his forenoons of work, and the afternoons when friends +from near and far walk across the fields, or drive, or motor up to +Woodchuck Lodge; and best of all, he enjoys the peace that evening +brings--those late afternoon hours when the shadow of Old Clump is +thrown on the broad mountain-slope across the valley, and when the long, +silvery notes of the vesper sparrow chant "Peace, goodwill, and then +good-night." As the shadows deepen, he is wont to carry his Victor +out to the stone wall and let the music from Brahms's "Cradle Song" or +Schubert's "Serenade" float to us as we sit on the veranda, hushed into +humble gratitude for our share in this quiet life. + +To see Mr. Burroughs daily amid these scenes; to realize how they are a +part of him, and how inimitably he has transferred them to his books; +to roam over the pastures, follow the spring paths, linger by the stone +walls he helped to build, sit with him on the big rock in the +meadow where as a boy he sat and dreamed; to see him in the everyday +life--hoeing in the garden, tiptoeing about the house preparing +breakfast while his guests are lazily dozing on the veranda; to eat +his corn-cakes, or the rice-flour pudding with its wild strawberry +accompaniment; to see him rocking his grandson in the old blue cradle +in which he himself was rocked; to picnic in the beech woods with him, +climb toward Old Clump at sunset and catch the far-away notes of the +hermit; to loll in the hammocks under the apple trees, or to sit in +the glow of the Franklin stove of a cool September evening while he and +other philosophic or scientific friends discuss weighty themes; to hear +his sane, wise, and often humorous comments on the daily papers, and his +absolutely independent criticism of books and magazines--to witness and +experience all this, and more, is to enjoy a privilege so rare that I +feel selfish unless I try to share it, in a measure, with less fortunate +friends of Our Friend. + +(Illustration of Cradle in which John Burroughs was rocked. From a +photograph by Dr. John D. Johnson) + +It has been my good fortune to spend many delightful summers with Mr. +Burroughs at his old home, and also at Woodchuck Lodge. On my first +visit he led me to a hilltop and pointed off toward a deep gorge where +the Pepacton, although it is a placid stream near Roxbury, rises amid +scenery wild and rugged. It drains this high pastoral country, where the +farms hang upon the mountainsides or lie across the long, sloping hills. +The look of those farms impressed me as the fields of England impressed +Mr. Burroughs--"as though upon them had settled an atmosphere of ripe +and loving husbandry." I was often reminded in looking upon them of that +line of Emerson's: "The day, immeasurably long, sleeps over the wide, +warm fields." There is a fresh, blue, cleansed appearance to the hills, +"like a newly-washed lamp chimney," as Mr. Burroughs sometimes said. + +Our writer's overmastering attachment to his birthplace seems due +largely to the fact that the springs, the hills, and the wooded +mountains are inextricably blended with his parents and his youth. As he +has somewhere said, "One's own landscape comes in time to be a sort of +outlying part of him; he has sown himself broadcast upon it... planted +himself in the fields, builded himself in the stone walls, and evoked +the sympathy of the hills in his struggle." + +From a hilltop he pointed off to the west and said, "Yonder is the +direction that my grandparents came, in the 1790's, from Stamford, +cutting a road through the woods, and there, over Batavia Hill, Father +rode when he went courting Mother." + +Then we went up the tansy-bordered road, past the little graveyard, +and over to the site where his grandfather's first house stood. As +we wandered about the old stone foundations, his reminiscences were +interrupted by the discovery of a junco's nest. On the way back he +pointed across the wide valley to the West Settlement schoolhouse where +he and his brothers used to go, although his first school was in a +little stone building which is still standing on the outskirts of +Roxbury, and known thereabouts as "the old stone jug." Mr. Burroughs +remembers his first day in this school, and the little suit he wore, of +bluish striped cotton, with epaulets on the shoulders which flopped when +he ran. He fell asleep one day and tumbled off the seat, cutting his +head; he was carried to a neighboring farmhouse, and he still vividly +recalls the smell of camphor which pervaded the room when he regained +consciousness. He was about four years of age. He remembers learning +his "A-b ab's," as they were called, and just how the column of letters +looked in the old spelling-book; remembers sitting on the floor under +the desks and being called out once in a while to say his letters: +"Hen Meeker, a boy bigger than I was, stuck on _e_. I can remember the +teacher saying to him; 'And you can't tell that? Why, little Johnny +Burroughs can tell you what it is. Come, Johnny.' And I crawled out and +went up and said it was e, like a little man." + +Up the hill a short distance from the old homestead he indicated the +"turn 'n the road," as it passes by the "Deacon Woods"; this, he said, +was his first journey into the world. He was about four years old when, +running away, he got as far as this turn; then, looking back and seeing +how far he was from the house, he became frightened and ran back crying. +"I have seen a young robin," he added, "do the very same thing on its +first journey from the nest." + +"One of my earliest recollections," he said, "is that of lying on the +hearth one evening to catch crickets that Mother said ate holes in our +stockings--big, light-colored, long-legged house crickets, with long +horns; one would jump a long way. + +"Another early recollection comes to me: one summer day, when I was +three or four years old, on looking skyward, I saw a great hawk sailing +round in big circles. I was suddenly seized with a panic of fear and hid +behind the stone wall. + +"The very earliest recollection of my life is that of the 'hired girl' +throwing my cap down the steps, and as I stood there crying, I looked +up on the sidehill and saw Father with a bag slung across his shoulders, +striding across the furrows sowing grain. It was a warm spring day, +and as I looked hillward wistfully, I wished Father would come down +and punish the girl for throwing my cap down the stairs--little +insignificant things, but how they stick in the memory!" + +"I see myself as a little boy rocking this cradle," said Mr. Burroughs, +as he indicated the quaint blue wooden cradle (which I had found in +rummaging through the attic at the old home, and had installed in +Woodchuck Lodge), "or minding the baby while Mother bakes or mends +or spins. I hear her singing; I see Father pushing on the work of the +farm." + +Most of the soil in Delaware County is decomposed old red sandstone. +Speaking of this soil Mr. Burroughs said, "In the spring when the plough +has turned the turf, I have seen the breasts of these broad hills glow +like the breasts of robins." He is fond of studying the geology of the +region now. I have seen him dig away the earth the better to expose +the old glacier tracings, and then explain to his grandchildren how the +glaciers ages ago made the marks on the rocks. To me one of the finest +passages in his recent book "Time and Change" is one wherein he +describes the look of repose and serenity of his native hills, "as if +the fret and fever of life were long since passed with them." It is +a passage in which he looks at his home hills through the eye of +the geologist, but with the vision of the poet--the inner eye which +assuredly yields him "the bliss of solitude." + +One evening as we sat in the kitchen at the old home, he described the +corn-shelling of the olden days: "I see the great splint basket with the +long frying-pan handle thrust through its ears across the top, held +down by two chairs on either end, and two of my brothers sitting in +the chairs and scraping the ears of corn against the iron. I hear the +kernels rattle, a shower of them falling in the basket, with now and +then one flying out in the room. With the cobs that lie in a pile beside +the basket I build houses, carrying them up till they topple, or till +one of the shelters knocks them over. Mother is sitting by, sewing, her +tallow dip hung on the back of a chair. Winter reigns without. How it +all comes up before me!" + +He remembers when four or five years old crying over a thing which had +caused him deep chagrin: A larger boy--"the meanest boy I ever knew, and +he became the meanest man," he said with spirit--"found me sulking +under a tree in the corner of the school-yard; he bribed me with a slate +pencil into confessing what I was crying about, but as soon as I had +told him, he ran away with the pencil, shouting my secret to the other +boys." + +One day we went 'cross lots after spearmint for jelly for the table at +Woodchuck Lodge, and an abandoned house near the mint-patches recalled +to Mr. Burroughs the first time he had heard the word "taste" used, +except in reference to food. The woman who had lived in this house, +while calling at his home and seeing his attempt at drawing +something, had said, "What taste that boy has!" "It made me open my +eyes--'taste'!--then there was another kind of taste than the one I knew +about--the taste of things I ate!" + +At a place in the road near the old stone schoolhouse, he showed me +where, as a lad of thirteen, perhaps, he had stopped to watch some men +working the road, and had first heard the word "antiquities" used. "They +had uncovered and removed a large flat stone, and under it were other +stones, probably arranged by the hands of earlier roadmakers. David +Corbin, a man who had had some schooling, said, as they exposed the +earlier layers, 'Ah! here are antiquities!' The word made a lasting +impression on me." + +(Illustration of View of the Catskills from Woodchuck Lodge. From a +photograph by Charles S. Olcott) + +One of our favorite walks at sunset was up the hill beyond the old +home where the road winds around a neglected graveyard. From this high +vantage-ground one can see two of the Catskill giants--Double Top and +Mount Graham. It was not a favorite walk of the boy John Burroughs. He +told how, even in his early teens, at dusk, he would tiptoe around the +corner past the graveyard, afraid to run for fear a gang of ghosts would +be at his heels. "When I got down the road a ways, though, how I would +run!" He was always "scairy" if he had to come along the edge of the +woods alone at nightfall, and was even afraid of the big black hole +under the barn in the daytime: "I was tortured with the thought of what +might lurk there in that great black abyss, and would hustle through my +work of cleaning the stable, working like Hercules, and often sending in +'Cuff,' the dog, to scare 'em out." + +Fed on stories of ghosts and hobgoblins in childhood, his active, +sensitive imagination became an easy prey to these fears. But we do +outgrow some things. In the summer of 1911 this grown-up boy waxed so +bold that he sat in the barn with its black hole underneath and wrote +of "The Phantoms Behind Us." There was still something Herculean in his +task; he looked boldly down into the black abysms of Time, not without +some shrinking, it is true, saw the "huge first Nothing," faced the +spectres as they rose before him, wrestled with them, and triumphantly +conquered by acknowledging each phantom as a friendly power--a creature +on whose shoulders he had raised himself to higher and higher levels; +he saw that though the blackness was peopled with uncouth and gigantic +forms, out of all these there at last arose the being Man, who could put +all creatures under his feet. + +Along the road between the old home and Woodchuck Lodge are some rocks +which were the "giant stairs" of his childhood. On these he played, +and he is fond now of pausing and resting there as he recalls events of +those days. + +"Are these rocks very old?" some one asked him one day. + +"Oh, yes; they've been here since Adam was a kitten." + +Whichever way he turns, memories of early days awaken; as he himself +has somewhere said in print, "there is a deposit of him all over the +landscape where he has lived." + + +As we have learned, Mr. Burroughs seems to have been more alive than +his brothers and playmates, to have had wider interests and activities. +When, a lad, he saw his first warbler in the "Deacon Woods," the +black-throated blue-back, he was excited and curious as to what the +strange bird could be (so like a visitant from another clime it seemed); +the other boys met his queries with indifference, but for him it was the +event of the day; it was far more, it was the keynote to all his days; +it opened his eyes to the life about him--here, right in the "Deacon +Woods," were such exquisite creatures! It fired him with a desire to +find out about them. That tiny flitting warbler! How far its little +wings have carried it! What an influence it has had on American +literature, and on the lives of readers for the past fifty years, +sending them to nature, opening their eyes to the beauty that is common +and near at hand! One feels like thanking the Giver of all good that +a little barefoot boy noted the warbler that spring day as it flitted +about in the beeches wood. Life has been sweeter and richer because of +it. + +Down the road a piece is the place where this boy made a miniature +sawmill, sawing cucumbers for logs. On this very rock where we sit he +used to catch the flying grasshoppers early of an August morning--"the +big brown fellows that fly like birds"; they would congregate here +during the night to avail themselves of the warmth of the rocks, and +here he would stop on his way from driving the cows to pasture, and +catch them napping. + +Yonder in the field by a stone wall, under a maple which is no longer +standing, in his early twenties he read Schlemiel's "Philosophy of +History," one of the volumes which, when a youth, he had found in an old +bookstall in New York, on the occasion of his first trip there. + +"Off there through what we used to call the 'Long Woods' lies the road +along which Father used to travel in the autumn when he took his butter +to Catskill, fifty miles away. Each boy went in turn. When it came my +turn to go, I was in a great state of excitement for a week beforehand, +for fear my clothes would not be ready, or else it would be too cold, or +that the world would come to an end before the time of starting. Perched +high on a spring-seat, I made the journey and saw more sights and +wonders than I have ever seen on a journey since." + +On the drive up from the village he showed me the place, a mile or more +from their haunts on the breezy mountain lands, where the sheep were +driven annually to be washed. It was a deep pool then, and a gristmill +stood near by. He said he could see now the huddled sheep, and the +overhanging rocks with the phoebes' nests in the crevices. + +"Down in the Hollow," as they call the village of Robbery, he drew my +attention to the building which was once the old academy, and where +he had his dream of going to school. He remembers as a lad of thirteen +going down to the village one evening to hear a man, McLaurie, talk up +the academy before there was one in Roxbury. "I remember it as if it +were yesterday; a few of the leading men of the village were there. I +was the only boy. I've wondered since what possessed me to go. In +his talk the man spoke of what a blessing it would be to boys of that +vicinity, pointing me out and saying, 'Now, like that boy, there.' I +recall how I dropped my head and blushed. He was a small man, very much +in earnest. When I heard of his death a few years ago, it gave me long, +long thoughts. He finally got the academy going, taught it, and had a +successful school there for several years, but I never got there. The +school in the West Settlement, Father thought, was good enough for me. +But my desire to go, and dreaming of it, impressed it and him upon me +more, perhaps, than the boys who really went were impressed. How outside +of it all I felt when I used to go down there to the school exhibitions! +It was after that that I had my dream of going to Harpersfield +Seminary--the very name had a romantic sound. Though Father had promised +me I might go, when the time came he couldn't afford it; he didn't mean +to go back on his word, but there was very little money--I wonder how +they got along so well as they did with so little." + +"As a boy it had been instilled into my mind that God would strike one +dead for mocking him. One day Ras Jenkins and I were crossing this +field when it began to thunder. Ras turned up his lips to the clouds +contemptuously. 'Oh, don't, you'll be struck,' I cried, cringing in +expectation of the avenging thunderbolt. What a revelation it was when +he was not struck! I immediately began to think, 'Now, maybe God isn't +so easily offended as I thought'; but it seemed to me any God with +dignity ought to have been offended by such an act." + +Mr. Burroughs showed me the old rosebush in the pasture, all that was +left to mark the site where a house had once stood; even before his +boyhood days this house had become a thing of the past. The roses, +though, had always been a joy to him, and had played such a part in his +early days that he had transplanted some of the old bush to a spot near +his doorsteps at Slabsides. Once when he sent me some of the roses he +wrote of them thus: "The roses of my boyhood! Take the first barefooted +country lad you see with homemade linen trousers and shirt, and ragged +straw hat, and put some of these roses in his hand, and you see me as +I was fifty-five years ago. They are the identical roses, mind you. +Sometime I will show you the bush in the old pasture where they grew." + +One day we followed the course he and his brothers and sisters used to +take on their way to school. Leaving the highway near the old graveyard, +we went down across a meadow, then through a beech wood, and on through +the pastures in the valley along which a trout brook used to flow, on +across more meadows and past where a neglected orchard was, till we came +to where the little old schoolhouse itself stood. + +How these trout streams used to lure him to play hookey! All the summer +noonings, too, were spent there. He spoke feelingly of the one that +coursed through the hemlocks--"loitering, log-impeded, losing itself in +the dusky, fragrant depths of the hemlocks." They used to play hookey +down at Stratton Falls, too, and get the green streaks in the old red +sandstone rocks to make slate pencils of, trying them on their teeth to +make sure they were soft enough not to scratch their slates. The woods +have been greatly mutilated in which they used to loiter on the way to +school and gather crinkle-root to eat with their lunches,--though they +usually ate it all up before lunch-time came, he said. In one of his +books Mr. Burroughs speaks of a schoolmate who, when dying, said, "I +must hurry, I have a long way to go over a hill and through a wood, and +it is getting dark." This was his brother Wilson, and he doubtless had +in mind this very course they used to take in going to school. + +This school (where Jay Gould was his playmate) he attended only until he +was twelve years of age. A rather curious reciprocal help these two lads +gave each other--especially curious in the light of their subsequent +careers as writer and financier. The boy John Burroughs was one day +feeling very uncomfortable because he could not furnish a composition +required of him. Eight lines only were sufficient if the task was +completed on time, but the time was up and no line was written. This +meant being kept after school to write twelve lines. In this extremity. +Jay Gould came to his rescue with the following doggerel:-- + + + "Time is flying past, + Night is coming fast, + I, minus two, as you all know, + But what is more + I must hand o'er + Twelve lines by night, + Or stay and write. + Just eight I've got + But you know that's not + Enough lacking four, + But to have twelve + It wants no more." + + +"I have never been able to make out what the third line meant," said Mr. +Burroughs. A few years later, when Jay Gould was hard up (he had left +school and was making a map of Delaware County), John Burroughs helped +him out by buying two old books of him, paying him eighty cents. The +books were a German grammar and Gray's "Elements of Geology." The embryo +financier was glad to get the cash, and the embryo writer unquestionably +felt the richer in possessing the books. + +Mr. Burroughs loves to look off toward Montgomery Hollow and talk of the +old haunt. "I've taken many a fine string of trout from that stream," he +would say. One day he and his brother Curtis and I drove over there +and fished the stream, and he could hardly stay in the wagon the last +half-mile. "Isn't it time to get out now, Curtis?" he fidgeted every +little while. "Not yet, John,--not yet," said the more phlegmatic +brother. But it was August, and although the rapid mountain brook seemed +just the place for trout, the trout were not in their places. I shall +long remember the enticing stream, the pretty cascades, the high +shelving rocks sheltering the mossy nest of the phoebe, and the glowing +masses of bee-balm blooming beside the stream; yes, and the eagerness of +one of the fishermen as he slipped along ahead of me, dropping his hook +into the pools. Occasionally he would relinquish the rod, putting it +into my hands with a rare self-denial as we came to a promising pool; +but I was more deft at gathering bee-balm than taking trout, and +willingly spared the rod to the eager angler. And even he secured only +two troutling to carry back in his mint-lined creel. + +"Trout streams gurgled about the roots of my family tree," he was wont +to say as he told of his grandfather Kelly's ardor for the pastime. One +day, in crossing the fields near the old home, he showed me the stone +wall where he and his grandfather tarried the last time they went +fishing together, he a boy of ten and his grandfather past eighty. As +they rested on the wall, the old man, without noticing it, sat on the +lad's hand as it lay on the wall. "It hurt," Mr. Burroughs said, "but I +didn't move till he got ready to get up." + +It was a great pleasure to go through the old sap bush with Mr. +Burroughs, for there he always lives over again the days in early spring +when sugar-making was in progress. He showed where some of the old trees +once stood,--the grandmother trees,--and mourned that they were no more; +but some of the mighty maples of his boyhood are still standing, and +each recalls youthful experiences. He sometimes goes back there now in +early spring to re-create the idyllic days. Their ways of boiling sap +are different now, and he finds less poetry in the process. But the look +of the old trees, the laugh of the robins, and the soft nasal calls +of the nuthatch, he says, are the same as in the old times. "How these +sounds ignore the years!" he exclaimed as a nuthatch piped in the +near-by trees. + +Sometimes he would bring over to Woodchuck Lodge from the homestead a +cake of maple sugar from the veteran trees, and some of the maple-sugar +cookies such as his mother used to make; though he eats sparingly of +sweets nowadays. Yet, when he and a small boy would clear the table and +take the food down cellar, it was no uncommon thing to see them emerge +from the stairway, each munching one of those fat cookies, their eyes +twinkling at the thought that they had found the forbidden sweets we had +hidden so carefully. + +He and this lad of eleven were great chums; they chased wild bees +together, putting honey on the stone wall, getting a line on the bees; +shelled beechnuts and cracked butternuts for the chipmunks; caught +skunks in a trap, just to demonstrate that a skunk can be carried by the +tail with impunity, if you only do it right (and, though succeeding one +day, got the worst of the bargain the next); and waged war early and +late on the flabby woodchucks which one could see almost any hour in the +day undulating across the fields. We called these boys "John of Woods," +and "John of Woodchucks"; and it was sometimes difficult to say which +was the veriest boy, the one of eleven or the one of seventy-four. + +One morning I heard them laughing gleefully together as they were +doing up the breakfast work. Calling out to learn the cause of their +merriment, I found the elder John had forgotten to eat his egg--he had +just found it in his coat-pocket, having put it in there to carry from +the kitchen to the living-room. + +He often amused us by his recital of Thackeray's absurd "Little Billee," +and by the application of some of the lines to events in the life at +Woodchuck Lodge. + +(Illustration of Living-Room, Woodchuck Lodge, with Rustic Furniture +made by Mr. Burroughs. From a photograph by M. H. Fanning) + +As the evenings grew longer and cooler, we would gather about the table +and Mr. Burroughs would read aloud, sometimes from Bergson's "Creative +Evolution," under the spell of which he was the entire summer of 1911, +sometimes from Wordsworth, sometimes from Whitman. "No other English +poet has touched me quite so closely," he said, "as Wordsworth.... But +his poetry has more the character of a message, and a message special +and personal, to a comparatively small circle of readers." As he read +"The Poet's Epitaph" one evening, I was impressed with the strong +likeness the portrait there drawn has to Mr. Burroughs:-- + + + "The outward shows of sky and earth, + Of hill and valley, he has viewed; + And impulses of deeper birth + Have come to him in solitude. + + In common things that round us lie + Some random truths he can impart,-- + The harvest of a quiet eye + That broods and sleeps on his own heart." + + +What are the books, and notably the later philosophical essays, of Mr. +Burroughs but the "harvest of a quiet eye"? His "Summit of the Years," +his "Gospel of Nature" (which one of his friends calls "The Gospel +according to Saint John"), his "Noon of Science," his "Long Road"? +And most of this rich harvest he has gathered in his journeys back to +Pepacton, inspired by the scenes amid which he first felt the desire to +write. + +Seeing him daily in these scenes, one feels that it may, indeed, be said +of him as Matthew Arnold said of Sophocles, that he sees life steadily, +and sees it whole. What a masterly handling is his of the facts of the +universe, giving his reader the truths of the scientist touched with an +idealism such as is only known to the poet's soul! A friend, writing me +of "The Summit of the Years," spoke of "its splendid ascent by a rapid +crescendo from the personal to the cosmic," and of how gratifying it is +to see our author putting forth such fine work in his advancing years. +Another friend called it "a beautiful record of a beautiful life." +I recall the September morning on which he began that essay. He had +written the first sentence--"The longer I live, the more I am impressed +with the beauty and the wonder of the world"--when he was interrupted +for a time. He spoke of what he had written, and said he hardly knew +what he was going to make of it. Later in the day he brought me a large +part of the essay to copy, and I remember how moved I was at its beauty, +how grateful that I had been present at its inception and birth. + +One afternoon he called us from our separate work, the artist from +her canvas and me from my typewriter, to look at a wonderful rainbow +spanning the wide valley below us. The next day he brought me a short +manuscript saying, "If that seems worth while to you, you may copy +it--I don't know whether there is anything in it or not." It was "The +Rainbow," which appeared some months later in a popular magazine--a +little gem, and a good illustration of his ability to throw the witchery +of the ideal around the facts of nature. The lad with us had been +learning Wordsworth's "Rainbow," a favorite of Mr. Burroughs, and it +was no unusual thing of a morning to hear the rustic philosopher while +frying the bacon for breakfast, singing contentedly in a sort of tune of +his own making:-- + + + "And I could wish my days to be + Bound each to each by natural piety." + + +One afternoon a neighbor came and took him in her automobile a ride of +fifty miles or more, the objective point of which was Ashland, the place +where he had attended a seminary in 1854 and 1855. On his return he said +it seemed like wizard's work that he could be whisked there and back +in one afternoon, to that place which had been the goal of his youthful +dreams! They had also called on a schoolmate whom he had not seen for +forty years. He told us how a possession of that boy's had been a thing +he had coveted for many months--a slate pencil with a shining copper +gun-cap! "How I longed for that pencil! I tried to trade for buttons +(all I had to offer in exchange), but it was too precious for my small +barter, and I coveted it in vain." The wistful Celt began early to sigh +for the unattainable. + +We picked wild strawberries in June from the "clover lot" where the boy +John Burroughs and his mother used to pick them. "I can see her now," he +said reminiscently, "her bent figure moving slowly in the summer fields +toward home with her basket filled. She would also go berrying on +Old Clump, in early haying, long after the berries were gone in the +lowlands." + +During this summer of which I speak, the fields were a gorgeous mass of +color--buttercups and daisies, and the orange hawkweed--a display that +rivaled the carpet of gold and purple we had seen in the San Joaquin +Valley, in company with John Muir three summers before. Mr. Muir was +done before starting for South America. He had promised to come to the +Catskills, but had to keep putting it off to get copy ready, and the +Laird of Woodchuck Lodge was exasperated that the mountaineer would +stay in that hot Babylon,--he, the lover of the wild,--when we in the +Delectable Mountains were calling him hither. As we looked upon the riot +of color one day, Mr. Burroughs said, "John Muir, confound him! I wish +he was here to see this at its height!" + +Returning to the little gray farmhouse in the gathering dusk one late +September day, Mr. Burroughs paused and turned, looking back at the old +home, and up at the cattle silhouetted against the horizon. He gazed +upon the landscape long and long. How fondly his eye dwells upon these +scenes! So I have seen him look when about to part from a friend--as if +he were trying to fix the features and expression in his mind forever. + +"The older one grows, the more the later years erode away, as do the +secondary rocks, and one gets down to bed-rock,--youth,--and there he +wants to rest. These scenes make youth and all the early life real to +me, the rest is more like a dream. How incredible it is!--all that is +gone; but here it lives again." + +(Illustration of On the Porch at Woodchuck Lodge. From a photograph by +Charles S. Olcott) + +And yet, though he is face to face with the past at his old home, his +days there are not so sad as some of his reminiscent talk would seem to +indicate. In truth, he is serenely content, so much so that he sometimes +almost chides himself for living so much in the present. "Oh, the power +of a living reality to veil or blot out the Past!" he sighed. "And yet, +is it not best so? Does not the grass grow above graves? Why should +these lovely scenes always be a cemetery to me? There seems to have been +a spell put upon them that has laid the ghosts, and I am glad." And to +see him bird-nesting with his grandchildren, hunting in the woods for +crooked sticks for his rustic furniture, waking the echo in the "new +barn" (a barn that was new in 1844), routing out a woodchuck from a +stone wall, blackberrying on the steep hillsides, or going a half-mile +across the fields just to smell the fragrance of the buckwheat bloom, is +to know that, wistful Celt that he is, and dominated by the spell of +the Past, he is yet very much alive to the Present, out of which he is +probably getting as full a measure of content as any man living to-day. + +He looked about him at the close of his first stay at Woodchuck Lodge +after the completion of the repairs which had made the house so homelike +and comfortable, and said contentedly: "A beautiful dream come true! And +to think I've stayed down there on the Hudson all these years with never +the home feeling, when here were my native hills waiting to cradle me +as they did in my youth, and I so slow to return to them! I've been +homesick for over forty years: I was an alien there; I couldn't take +root there. It was a lucky day when I decided to spend the rest of my +summers here" + + + + +CAMPING WITH BURROUGHS AND MUIR + + +In February, 1909, I was one of a small party which set out with Mr. +Burroughs for the Pacific Coast and the Hawaiian Islands. The lure held +out to him by the friend who arranged his trip was that John Muir +would start from his home at Martinez, California, and await him at +the Petrified Forests in Arizona; conduct him through, that weirdly +picturesque region, and in and around the Grand Canon of the Colorado; +camp and tramp with him in the Mojave Desert; tarry awhile in Southern +California; then visit Yosemite before embarking on the Pacific +preparatory to lotus-eating in Hawaii. The lure held out to the more +obscure members of the party was all that has been enumerated, plus that +of having these two great, simple men for traveling companions. To see +the wonders of the Southwest is in itself great good fortune, but to +see them in company with these two students of nature, and to study +the students while the students were studying the wonders, was an +incalculable privilege. + +It frightens me now when I think on what a slight chance hung our +opportunity for this unique Journey; for Mr. Burroughs, though at first +deciding to go, had later given it up, declaring himself to be too much +of a tenderfoot to go so far from home alone at his age. + +"Why should I go gadding about to see the strange and the +extraordinary?" he wrote me, when trying to argue himself into +abandoning the trip. "The whole gospel of my books (if they have any +gospel) is 'Stay at home; see the wonderful and the beautiful in the +simple things all about you; make the most of the common and the near at +hand.' When I have gone abroad, I have carried this spirit with me, +and have tested what I have seen by the nature revealed to me at my own +doorstep. Well, I am glad I have triumphed at last; I feel much better +and like writing again, now that this incubus is off my shoulders." But +the incubus soon rested on him again, for the next mail carried a letter +begging him to reconsider and let two of his women friends accompany +him. So it all came about in a few days, and we were off. + +We wondered how Mr. Muir would relish two women being in the party, but +assured Mr. Burroughs we should not hamper them, and should be ready to +do whatever they were. + +"Have no fears on that score," he said; "Muir will be friendly if +you are good listeners; and he is well worth listening to. He is very +entertaining, but he sometimes talks when I want to be let alone; at +least he did up in Alaska." + +"But you won't be crusty to him, will you?" + +"Oh, no, I shan't dare to be--he is too likely to get the best of one; +he is a born tease." + + +The long journey across the Western States (by the Santa Fe route) was +full of interest at every point. Even the monotony of the Middle West +was not wearisome, while the scenery and scenes in New Mexico and +Arizona were fascinating in the extreme. + +Mr. Burroughs had been to the Far West by a northern route, but this was +all fresh territory to him, and he brought to it his usual keen appetite +for new phases of nature, made still keener by a recently awakened +interest in geological subjects. It enhanced the pleasure and profit +of the trip a hundredfold to get his first impressions of the moving +panorama, as I did when he dictated notes to me from his diary, or +descriptive letters to his wife and son. The impression one gets out +there of earth sculpture in process is one of the chief attractions of +the region, and Mr. Burroughs never tired of studying the physiognomy +of the land, and the overwhelming evidences of time and change, and of +contrasting these with our still older, maturer landscapes in the East. + +In passing through Kansas he commented on the monotonous level expanse +of country as being unbearable from any point of view except as good +farm land. Used to hills and mountains, inviting brooks and winding +roads, he turned away from this unpicturesque land, saying if it was a +good place to make money, it was also a place to lose one's own soul--he +was already homesick for the beauty and diversity of our more winsome +country. + +Two days' journey from Chicago and we reached the desert town of +Adamana. As the train stopped near the little inn, a voice called out in +the darkness, "Hello, Johnnie, is that you?" + +"Yes, John Muir"; and there under the big dipper, on the great Arizona +desert, the two friends met after a lapse of ten years. + +"Muir, aren't you surprised to find me with two women in my wake?" asked +Mr. Burroughs, introducing us. + +"Yes; surprised that there are only two, Johnnie." Then to us, "Up in +Alaska there were a dozen or two following him around, tucking him up in +steamer rugs, putting pillows to his head, running to him with a flower, +or a description of a bird--Oh, two is a very moderate number, Johnnie, +but we'll manage to worry through with them, somehow." And picking up +part of our luggage, the tall, grizzly Scot led the way to the inn. + +The next day we drove nine miles over the rolling desert to visit one of +the petrified forests, of which there are five in that vicinity. Blended +with the unwonted scenes--the gray sands dotted with sagebrush and +greasewood, the leaping jack rabbits, the frightened bands of half-wild +horses, the distant buttes and mesas, and the brilliant blue of the +Arizona sky--is the memory of that talk of Mr. Muir's during the long +drive, a talk which for range and raciness I have never heard equaled. +He often uses the broad dialect of the Scot, translating as he +goes along. His forte is in monologue. He is a most engaging +talker,--discursive, grave and gay,--mingling thrilling adventures, +side-splitting anecdotes, choice quotations, apt characterizations, +scientific data, enthusiastic descriptions, sarcastic comments, scornful +denunciations, inimitable mimicry. + +Mr. Burroughs, on the contrary, is not a ready talker; he gives of his +best in his books. He establishes intimate relations with his reader, +Mr. Muir with his listener. He is more fond of an interchange of ideas +than is Mr. Muir; is not the least inclined to banter or to get the +better of one; is so averse to witnessing discomfiture that even when +forced into an argument, he is loath to push it to the bitter end. Yet +when he does engage in argument, he drives things home with very telling +force, especially when writing on debatable points. + +As we drove along the desert, Mr. Muir pointed to a lofty plateau toward +which we were tending,--"Robbers' Roost,"--where sheep-stealers +hie themselves, commanding the view for hundreds of miles in every +direction. I wish I could make vivid the panorama we saw from this +vantage-ground--the desert in the foreground, and far away against the +sky the curiously carved pink and purple and lilac mountains, while +immediately below us lay the dry river-bed over which a gaunt raven +flew and croaked ominously, and a little beyond rose the various buttes, +mauve and terra-cotta colored, from whose sides and at whose bases +projected the petrified trees. There lay the giant trees, straight and +tapering--no branching as in our trees of to-day. The trunks are often +flattened, as though they had been under great pressure, often the very +bark seemed to be on them (though it was petrified bark), and on some +we saw marks of insect tracery like those made by the borers of to-day. +Some of the trunks were more than one hundred and fifty feet long, and +five to seven feet in diameter, prostrate but intact, looking as though +uprooted where they lay. Others were broken at regular intervals, as +though sawed into stove lengths. In places the ground looks like a +chip-yard, the chips dry and white as though bleached by the sun. The +eye is deceived; chips these surely are, you think, but the ear corrects +this impression, for as your feet strike the fragments, the clinking +sound proves that they are stone. In some of the other forests, visited +later, the chips and larger fragments, and the interior of the trunks, +are gorgeously colored, so that we walked on a natural mosaic of jasper, +chalcedony, onyx, and agate. In many fragments the cell-structure of +the wood is still visible, but in others nature has carried the process +further, and crystallization has transformed the wood of these old, +old trees into the brilliant fragments we can have for the +carrying--"beautiful wood replaced by beautiful stone," as Mr. Muir was +fond of saying. + +With what wonder and incredulity we roamed about witnessing the strange +spectacle!--the prostrate monarchs with hearts of jasper and chalcedony, +now silent and rigid in this desolate region where they basked in the +sunlight and swayed in the winds millions of years ago. Only a small +part of the old forest is as yet exposed; these trees, buried for ages +beneath the early seas, becoming petrified as they lay, are, after ages +more, gradually being unearthed as the softer parts of the soil covering +them wears away. + +The scenic aspects of the place, the powerful appeal it made to the +imagination, the evidences of infinite time, the wonderful metamorphosis +from vegetable life to these petrified remains which copy so faithfully +the form and structure of the living trees, were powerfully enhanced by +the sight of these two men wandering amid these ruins of Carboniferous +time, sometimes in earnest conversation, oftener in silence; again in +serious question from the one and perhaps bantering answer from the +other; for although Mr. Burroughs was intensely interested in this +spectacle, and full of cogitations and questions as to the cause and +explanation of it all, Mr. Muir was not disposed to treat questions +seriously. + +"Oh, get a primer of geology, Johnnie," he would say when the earnest +Eastern student would ask for a solution of some of the puzzles arising +in his mind--a perversity that was especially annoying, since the Scot +had carefully explored these regions, and was doubtless well equipped to +adduce reasonable explanations had he been so minded. That very forest +to which we went on that first day, and where we ate our luncheon from +the trunk of a great petrified Sigillaria, had been discovered by Mr. +Muir and his daughter a few years before as they were riding over the +sandy plateau. He told us how excited he was that night--he could not +sleep, but lay awake trying to restore the living forest in imagination, +for, from the petrified remains, he could tell to what order these +giants belonged. + +When others congregate to eat, the Scot seems specially impelled to +talk. With a fine disregard for food, he sat and crumbled dry bread, +occasionally putting a bit in his mouth, talking while the eating +was going on. He is likewise independent of sleep. "Sleep!" he would +exclaim, when the rest of us, after a long day of sight-seeing, would +have to yield to our sense of fatigue, "why, you can sleep when you get +back home, or, at least, in the grave." + +Mr. Burroughs, on the contrary, is specially dependent upon sleep and +food in order to do his work or to enjoy anything. On our arrival at the +Grand Canon in the morning, after a night of travel and fasting, all the +rest of us felt the need of refreshing ourselves and taking breakfast +before we would even take a peep at the great rose-purple abyss out +there a few steps from the hotel, but the teasing Scot jeered at us for +thinking of eating when there was that sublime spectacle to be seen. +When we did go out to the rim, Mr. Muir preceded us, and, as we +approached, waved toward the great abyss and said: "There! Empty your +heads of all vanity, and look!" And we did look, overwhelmed by what +must be the most truly sublime spectacle this earth has to offer--a +veritable terrestrial Book of Revelation, as Mr. Burroughs said. + +We followed a little path along the rim, led by Mr. Muir, to where we +could escape from the other sight-seers, and there we sat on the rocks, +though the snow lay in patches on the ground that bright February day. +Mr. Burroughs made a fire of Juniper brush, and as the fragrant incense +rose on the air, with that wondrous spectacle before our eyes, we +listened to Mr. Muir reciting some lines from Milton--almost the only +poet one would think of quoting in the presence of such solemn, awful +beauty. + +Mr. Muir tried to dissuade us the next day from going down into the +canon: "Don't straddle a mule and poke your noses down to the ground, +and plunge down that dangerous icy trail, imagining, because you get a +few shivers down your backs, you are seeing the glories of the canon, or +getting any conception of the noble river that made it. You must climb, +climb, to see the glories, always." But when Mr. Burroughs would ask him +where we could climb to, to see the canon, since under his guidance +we had been brought to the very edge on the top, he did not deign to +explain, but continued to deride the project of the descent into the +depths--a way the dear man has of meeting an argument that is a bit +annoying at times. + +We did go down into the canon on mule-back,--down, down, over four +thousand feet,--and the jeering Scot went with us, sitting his mule +uncompromisingly, and indulging in many a jest at the expense of the +terrified women who felt, when too late to retreat, that it would have +been better to heed his advice. Still, after the descent, and then +the ascent, were safely accomplished, we were glad we had not let him +dissuade us. None of us can ever forget that day, with its rich and +varied experiences, the mingled fear and awe and exultation, the +overpowering emotions felt at each new revelation of the stupendous +spectacle, often relieved by the lively sallies of Mr. Muir. We ate +our luncheon on the old Cambrian plateau, the mighty Colorado, still a +thousand feet below us, looking entirely inadequate to have accomplished +the tremendous results we were witnessing. + +One day at the canon, feeling acutely aware of our incalculable +privilege, I said, "To think of having the Grand Canon, and John +Burroughs and John Muir thrown in!" + +"I wish Muir _was_ thrown in, sometimes," retorted Mr. Burroughs, with a +twinkle in his eye, "when he gets between me and the canon." + + +In contrast to Mr. Muir, the Wanderer, is Mr. Burroughs, the Home-lover, +one who is under the spell of the near and the familiar. The scenes of +his boyhood in the Catskills, the woods he wandered in about Washington +during the years he dwelt there, his later tramping-ground along the +Hudson--these are the scenes he has made his readers love because he has +loved them so much himself; and however we may enjoy his journeyings in +"Mellow England," in "Green Alaska," in Jamaica, or his philosophical +or speculative essays, we find his stay-at-home things the best. And he +likes the familiar scenes and things the best, much as he enjoyed the +wonders that the great West offered. The robins in Yosemite Valley and +the skylarks in the Hawaiian Islands, because these were a part of his +earlier associations, did more to endear these places to him than did +the wonders themselves. On Hawaii, where we saw the world's greatest +active volcano throwing up its fountains of molten lava sixty or more +feet high, the masses falling with a roar like that of the "husky-voiced +sea," Mr. Burroughs found it difficult to understand why some of us were +so fascinated that we wanted to stay all night, willing to endure the +discomforts of a resting-place on lava rocks, occasional stifling gusts +of sulphur fumes, dripping rain, and heat that scorched our veiled +faces, so long as we could gaze on that boiling, tumbling, heaving, +ever-changing lake of fire. Such wild, terrible, unfamiliar beauty could +not long hold him under its spell. + +(Illustration of John Muir and John Burroughs, Pasadena, California. +From a photograph by George R. King) + +A veritable homesickness came over him amid unfamiliar scenes. One day +in early March, after journeying all day over the strange region of the +California desert, with its giant cacti, its lava-beds, its volcanic +cones, its rugged, barren mountains, its deep gorges and canons, its +snow-capped peaks, on reaching San Bernardino, so green and fresh and +smiling in the late afternoon sun, and riding through miles and miles +of orange groves to Riverside, this return to a winsome nature (though +unlike his own), after so much of the forbidding aspect had been before +us, was to Mr. Burroughs like water brooks to the thirsty hart. + +His abiding love for early friends, too, crops out on all occasions. +Twice while away on this trip be received the proffer of honorary +degrees from two of our American universities. Loath to accept such +honors at any time, he was especially so now, and declined, defending +himself by saying that the acceptance would have necessitated his +hurrying straight home across the States to have the degrees conferred +upon him, when he was planning to tarry in Iowa and see an old +schoolmate. + +"I didn't want to do it," he said petulantly; "I wanted to stop and see +Sandy Smith"--his tone being not unlike what he would have used when as +a boy he doubtless coaxed to "go out and play with Sandy." + +Mr. Burroughs is too much a follower of the genuinely simple life to be +long contented in hotels, however genial the hospitality. He declared +the elegant suite at the Mission Inn at Riverside, which was tendered +to him and his party in the most cordial, unobtrusive way, was too +luxurious for a "Slabsider" like him. It was positively painful to him +to be asked, as he was frequently on the Western and Hawaiian tour, to +address audiences, or "just to come and meet the students" at various +schools and colleges. Such meetings usually meant being "roped in" to +making a speech, often in spite of assurances to the contrary. I have +known him to slip away from a men's club early in the evening, before +dinner was announced, and return to our little cottage in Pasadena, +where he would munch contentedly an uncooked wafer, drink a cup of hot +water, read a little geology, and go to bed at the seasonable hour of +nine, the next morning awakening with a keen appetite for the new day, +for his breakfast, and for his forenoon of work, whereas, had he stayed +out till eleven or twelve, eaten a hearty dinner, and been stimulated +and excited by much talk, he would have awakened without the joy in the +morning which he has managed to carry through his seventy-six years, and +which his readers, who rejoice in the freshness and tranquillity of his +pages, hope he will keep till he reaches the end of the Long Road. + +Mr. Muir is as averse to speaking in public as is Mr. Burroughs, much as +he likes to talk. They both dislike the noise and confusion of cities, +and what we ordinarily mean by social life. Mr. Burroughs is less an +alien in cities than is Mr. Muir, yet, on the whole, he is more of a +solitaire, more of a recluse. He avoids men where the other seeks them. +He cannot deal or dicker with men, but the canny Scot can do this, if +need be, and even enjoy it. Circumstances seem to have made Mr. Muir +spend most of his years apart from his fellows, although by nature he +is decidedly gregarious; circumstances seem to have decreed that Mr. +Burroughs spend the greater part of his life among his fellow-men, +though there is much of the hermit in his make-up. + +Mr. Muir gets lost in cities--this man who can find his way on the +trackless desert, the untrodden glaciers, and in the most remote and +inaccessible mountain heights. He will never admit that his wanderings +were lonely: "You can always have the best part of your friends with +you," he said; "it is only when people cease to love that they are +separated." + +One Sunday in Pasadena we had planned to have a picnic up one of the +canons, but the rain decreed otherwise. So, discarding tables and other +appurtenances of life within doors, we picnicked on the floor of our +sitting-room, making merry there with the luncheon we had prepared +for the jaunt. While passing back and forth through the room in our +preparations, we heard the men of the party talk in fragments, and +amusing fragments they were. Once when Mr. Browne, the editor of +the "Dial," was discussing some point in connection with the +Spanish-American War, I heard Mr. Muir say, with a sigh of relief, "I +was getting flowers up on the Tuolumne meadows then, and didn't have to +bother about those questions." When another friend was criticizing Mr. +Roosevelt for the reputed slaughter of so many animals in Africa, and +Mr. Burroughs declared he did not credit half the things the papers said +the hunter was doing, Mr. Muir said, half chidingly, half tolerantly, +"Roosevelt, the muggins, I am afraid he is having a good time putting +bullets through those friends of his." Now I had heard him call Mr. +Burroughs "You muggins" in the same winning, endearing way he said +"Johnnie"; I had heard him speak of a petrified tree in the Sigillaria +forest as a "muggins"; of a bear that trespassed on his flowery domains +in the Sierra meadows as a "muggins" that he tried to look out of +countenance and failed; of a "comical little muggins of a daisy" that +some one had named after him; and one day he had rejoiced my heart by +dubbing me "You muggins, you"; and behold! here he was now applying the +elastic term to our many-sided (I did not say "strenuous") ex-President! +Later I heard him apply it to a Yosemite waterfall, and by then should +not have been surprised to hear him speak of a mighty glacier, or a +giant sequoia, as a "muggins." + +"Stickeen," Mr. Muir's incomparable dog story, came out in book form +while we were in Pasadena. I sent a copy to my brother, who wrote later +asking me to inquire of Mr. Muir why he did not keep Stickeen after +their perilous adventures together. So I put the question to him one +day. "Keep him!" he ejaculated, as he straightened his back, and the +derisive wrinkles appeared on one side of his nose; "keep him! he wasn't +mine--I'm Scotch, I never steal." Then he explained that Stickeen's real +master was attached to him; that he could not take him from him; and +besides, the dog was accustomed to a cold climate, and would have been +very unhappy in California. "Oh, no, I couldn't keep Stickeen," he said +wistfully, but one felt that he _had_ kept Stickeen, the best part of +him, by immortalizing him in that story. + +While we were housekeeping in Pasadena, Mr. Burroughs began writing on +the Grand Canon. One morning, after having disposed of several untimely +callers, he had finally settled down to work. We sat around the big +table writing or reading. Mr. Burroughs was there in the body, but +in spirit we could see he was at the "Divine Abyss," as he called +the Canon. Once he read us a few sentences which were so good that I +resolved we must try harder to prevent interruptions, that he might +keep all his writing up to that standard. But while engaged in +letter-writing, some point arose, and, forgetting my laudable +resolution, I put a question to him. Answering me abstractedly, he went +on with his writing. Then I realized how inexcusable it was to intrude +my trivialities at such a time. Castigating myself and resolving anew, +I wrote on in contrite silence. After a little Mr. Burroughs paused and +lifted his head; his expression was puzzled, as though wrestling with +some profound thought, or weighing some nicety of expression; I saw he +was about to speak--perhaps to utter his latest impression concerning +the glories of the Canon. As he opened his lips this is what we heard: +"_Couldn't we warm up those Saratoga chips for luncheon?_" Whereupon +it will be seen that the abyss he was then cogitating about was in the +epigastric region, instead of in Arizona. + +Mr. Muir likes a laugh at his own expense. He told us of a +school-teacher in the vicinity of his home instructing her pupils about +Alaska and the glaciers; and on telling them that the great Muir Glacier +was named after their neighbor, who discovered it, one little boy piped +up with, "What, not that old man that drives around in a buggy!" + +I may as well offset this with one of our Hawaiian experiences. When we +were in Honolulu, we heard that one of the teachers there, thinking +to make a special impression upon her pupils, told them the main facts +about Mr. Burroughs's writings, their scope and influence, what he stood +for as a nature writer, his place in literature, and then described his +appearance, and said, "And this noted man, this great nature lover, is +right here--a guest in our city!" A little lad broke in with, "I know--I +saw him yesterday--he was in our yard stealing mangoes." + + +One day, while still in Pasadena, I told Mr. Muir that on April 3d a few +of us wished to celebrate Mr. Burroughs's birthday, his seventy-second, +by a picnic up one of the Mount Lowe canons. He said it would be +impossible for him to be with us on that day, as he had to go up to +San Francisco. On my expressing keen disappointment he teasingly +said:--"Why, you will have Johnnie, and Mr. Browne, and the +mountains--what more do you want?" + +"But we want _you_," I protested, assuring him that this was not a case +where one could say,-- + + + "How happy could I be with either, + Were t'other dear Johnnie away!" + + +"Well, then, why can't you have it some other day?" + +"Because he wasn't born some other day." + +"But why must you be tied to the calendar? Can't you celebrate Johnnie's +birthday a few days later just as well? Such a stickler for the exact +date as you are, I never saw." + +Thus he bantered, but when he had to leave us, we knew he was as +disappointed as we all were that he could not be with us on that "exact +date." + +How he did enjoy hectoring us for our absurd mistake in not reading our +long tickets through, consequently getting on the Santa Fe train to go +up to San Francisco when a little coupon stated that the ticket took us +by the Coast line. We were bound to let the Scot know of our mistake, +and our necessary transfer to the other road (as we had arranged to +meet him at a certain point on the Santa Fe), else, I suppose, we never +should have given him that chance to jeer at us. He made us tell him all +about it when we met, and shaking with laughter at all the complications +the mistake entailed, he declared, "Oh, but that's a bully story!" + +"It'll put an inch of fat on Muir's ribs," retorted "Oom John," who was +not without chagrin at the fiasco. + +"Johnnie, when you sail for Honolulu, I expect, unless you're narrowly +watched, you'll get on the wrong ship and go off to Vancouver," teased +the fun-loving Scot. + + +In Yosemite, Mr. Muir told us about the great trees he used to saw into +timber during his early years in the valley, showing us the site of his +old mill, and bragging that he built it and kept it in repair at a cost +of less than twenty-five cents a year. It seemed strange that he, a +tree-lover, could have cut down those noble spruces and firs, and I +whispered this to Mr. Burroughs. + +"Ask him about it," said the latter, "ask him." So I did. + +"Bless you, I never cut down the trees--I only sawed those the Lord had +felled." + +The storms that swept down the mountains had laid these monarchs low, +and the thrifty Scot had merely taken advantage of the ill winds, at the +same time helping nature to get rid of the debris. + +"How does this compare with Esopus Valley, Johnnie?" Mr. Muir was fond +of asking Mr. Burroughs, when he saw the latter gazing in admiration at +mighty El Capitan, or the thundering Yosemite Falls. Or he would say, +"How is that for a piece of glacial work, Johnnie?" as he pointed to +Half Dome and told how the glacier had worn off at least half a mile +from its top, and then had sawed right down through the valley. + +"O Lord! that's too much, Muir," answered Mr. Burroughs. He declared +that it stuck in his crop--this theory that ice alone accounts for this +great valley cut out of the solid rocks. When the Scot would get to +riding his ice-hobby too hard, Mr. Burroughs would query, "But, Muir, +the million years before the ice age--what was going on here then?' + +"Oh, God knows," said Mr. Muir, but vouchsafed no further explanation. + +(Illustration of John Burroughs and John Muir in the Yosemite. From a +photograph by F. P. Clatworthy) + + +"With my itch for geology," said Mr. Burroughs, "I want it scratched +all the time, and Muir doesn't want to scratch it." So he dropped his +questions, which elicited only bantering answers from the mountaineer, +and gave himself up to sheer admiration of the glories and beauties of +the region, declaring that of all the elemental scenes he had beheld, +Yosemite beat them all--"The perpetual thunder peal of the waters +dashing like mad over gigantic cliffs, the elemental granite rocks--it +is a veritable 'wreck of matter and crush of worlds' that we see here." + + +Mr. Burroughs urged Mr. Muir again and again to reclaim his early +studies in the Sierra which were printed in the "Overland Monthly" years +ago, and give them to the public now with the digested information which +he alone can supply, and which is as yet inaccessible in his voluminous +notes and sketches of the region. At Mr. Muir's home we saw literally +barrels of these notes. He admitted that he had always been dilatory +about writing, but not about studying or note-taking; often making +notes at night when fatigued from climbing and from two and three days' +fasting; but the putting of them into literature is irksome to him. Yet, +much as he dislikes the labor of writing, he will shut himself away +from the air and sunshine for weeks at a time, if need arises, and write +vigorously in behalf of the preservation of our forests. He did this +back in the late seventies, and in more recent years has been tireless +in his efforts to secure protection to our noble forests when danger has +threatened them. + +Mr. Muir's knowledge of the physiognomy and botany of most of the +countries of the globe is extensive, and he has recently added South +America and South Africa to his list; there is probably no man living, +and but few who have lived, so thoroughly conversant with the effects of +glaciation as is he; yet, unless he puts his observations into writing, +much of his intimate knowledge of these things must be lost when he +passes on. And, as Mr. Burroughs says, "The world wants this knowledge +seasoned with John Muir, not his mere facts. He could accumulate enough +notes to fill Yosemite, yet that would be worth little. He has spent +years studying and sketching the rocks, and noting facts about them, +but you can't reconstruct beauty and sublimity out of mere notes and +sketches. He must work his harvest into bread." But concerning this +writing Mr. Muir confesses he feels the hopelessness of giving his +readers anything but crumbs from the great table God has spread: "I can +write only hints to incite good wanderers to come to the feast." + +Here we see the marked contrast between these two nature students: Mr. +Muir talks because he can't help it, and his talk is good literature; he +writes only because he has to, on occasion; while Mr. Burroughs writes +because he can't help it, and talks when he can't get out of it. Mr. +Muir, the Wanderer, needs a continent to roam in; while Mr. Burroughs, +the Saunterer, needs only a neighborhood or a farm. The Wanderer is +content to scale mountains; the Saunterer really climbs the mountain +after he gets home, as he makes it truly his own only by dreaming +over it and writing about it. The Wanderer finds writing irksome; the +Saunterer is never so well or so happy as when he can write; his food +nourishes him better, the atmosphere is sweeter, the days are brighter. +The Wanderer has gathered his harvest from wide fields, just for the +gathering; he has not threshed it out and put it into the bread of +literature--only a few loaves; the Saunterer has gathered his harvest +from a rather circumscribed field, but has threshed it out to the last +sheaf; has made many loaves; and it is because he himself so enjoys +writing that his readers find such joy and morning freshness in his +books, his own joy being communicated to his reader, as Mr. Muir's own +enthusiasm is communicated to his hearer. With Mr. Burroughs, if his +field of observation is closely gleaned, he turns aside into subjective +fields and philosophizes--a thing which Mr. Muir never does. + + +One of the striking things about Mr. Muir is his generosity; and though +so poor in his youth and early adult life, he has now the wherewithal to +be generous. His years of frugality have, strange to say, made him feel +a certain contempt for money. At El Tovar he asked, "What boy brought +up my bags?" Whereupon a string of bell-boys promptly appeared for their +fees, and Mr. Muir handed out tips to all the waiting lads, saying in +a droll way, "I didn't know I had so many bags." When we tried to +reimburse him for the Yosemite trip, he would have none of it, saying, +almost peevishly, "Now don't annoy me about that." Yet, if he thinks one +is trying to get the best of him, he can look after the shekels as well +as any one. One day in Yosemite when we were to go for an all day's +tramp and wished a luncheon prepared at the hotel, on learning of +the price they were to charge, he turned his back on the landlord and +dispatched one of us to the little store, where, for little more than +the hotel would have charged for one person, a luncheon for five was +procured, and then he really chuckled that he had been able to snap his +fingers at mine host, who had thought he had us at his mercy. + + +I see I have kept Mr. Muir close to the footlights most of the time, +allowing Mr. Burroughs to hover in the background where he blends with +the neutral tones; but so it was in all the thrilling scenes in the +Western drama--Mr. Muir and the desert, Mr. Muir and the petrified +trees, Mr. Muir and the canon, Mr. Muir and Yosemite; while with "Oom +John," it was a blending with the scene, a quiet, brooding absorption +that made him seem a part of them--the desert, the petrified trees, the +Grand Canon, Yosemite, and Mr. Burroughs inseparably linked with them, +but seldom standing out in sharp contrast to them, as the "Beloved +Egotist" stood out on all occasions. + + +Perhaps the most idyllic of all our days of camping and tramping with +John of Birds and John of Mountains was the day in Yosemite when we +tramped to Nevada and Vernal Falls, a distance of fourteen miles, +returning to Camp Ahwahnee at night, weary almost to exhaustion, but +strangely uplifted by the beauty and sublimity n which we had lived and +moved and had our being. Our brown tents stood hospitably open, and out +in the great open space in front we sat around the campfire under the +noble spruces and firs, the Merced flowing softly on our right, mighty +Yosemite Falls thundering away in the distance, while the moon rose over +Sentinel Rock, lending a touch of ineffable beauty to the scene, and a +voice, that is now forever silenced, lent to the rhymes of the poets its +richness of varied emotion, as it chanted choicest selections from the +Golden Poems of all time. We lingered long after the other campers +had gone to rest, loath to bring to its close a day so replete with +sublimity and beauty. Mr. Burroughs summed it up as he said good-night: +"A day with the gods of eld--a holy day in the temple of the gods." + + + + +JOHN BURROUGHS: AN APPRECIATION + + +"John is making an impression on his age--has come to stay--has +veritable, indisputable, dynamic gifts," Walt Whitman said familiarly +to a friend in 1888, in commenting on our subject's place in literature. +And of a letter written to him by Mr. Burroughs that same year he said: +"It is a June letter, worthy of June; written in John's best outdoor +mood. Why, it gets into your blood, and makes you feel worth while. I +sit here, helpless as I am, and breathe it in like fresh air." + +Minot Savage once asked in a sermon if it did not occur to his hearers +that John Burroughs gets a little more of June than the rest of us do, +and added that Mr. Burroughs had paid years of consecration of thought +and patient study of the lives of birds and flowers, and so had bought +the right to take June and all that it means into his brain and heart +and life; and that if the rest of us wish these joys, we must purchase +them on the same terms. We are often led to ask what month he has not +taken into his heart and life, and given out again in his writings. +Perhaps most of all he has taken April into his heart, as his essay on +it in "Birds and Poets" will show:-- + + +How it (April) touches one and makes him both glad and sad! The voices +of the arriving birds, the migrating fowls, the clouds of pigeons +sweeping across the sky or filling the woods, the elfin horn of the +first honey-bee venturing abroad in the middle of the day, the clear +piping of the little frogs in the marshes at sundown, the camp-fire in +the sugar-bush, the smoke seen afar rising over the trees, the tinge of +green that comes so suddenly on the sunny knolls and slopes, the full +translucent streams, the waxing and warming sun,--how these things and +others like them are noted by the eager eye and ear! April is my natal +month, and I am born again into new delight and new surprises at +each return of it. Its name has an indescribable charm to me. Its two +syllables are like the calls of the first birds,--like that of the +phoebe-bird, or of the meadowlark. + + +But why continue? The whole essay breathes of swelling buds, springing +grass, calls of birds, April flowers, April odors, and April's uncloying +freshness and charm. As we realize what the returning spring brings to +this writer, we say with Bliss Carman:-- + + + "Make (him) over. Mother April, + When the sap begins to stir." + + +I fancy there are many of his readers who will echo what one of his +friends has said to him: "For me the 3d of April will ever stand apart +in the calendar with a poignant beauty and sweetness because it is your +birthday. It is the keynote to which the whole springtime music is set." +Or another: "If April 3d comes in like any other day, please understand +that it will be because she does not dare to show how glad she is over +her own doings." On another birthday, the same correspondent says: "I +find that you are so inwoven with the spring-time that I shall never +again be able to resolve the season into its elements. But I am the +richer for it. I feel a sort of compassion for one who has never seen +the spring through your eyes." + +Mr. Burroughs puts his reader into close and sympathetic communion with +the open-air world as no other literary naturalist has done. Gilbert +White reported with painstaking fidelity the natural history of +Selborne; Thoreau gave Thoreau with glimpses of nature thrown in; +Richard Jefferies, in dreamy, introspective descriptions of rare beauty +and delicacy, portrayed his own mystical impressions of nature; but +Mr. Burroughs takes us with him to the homes and haunts of the wild +creatures, sets us down in their midst, and lets us see and hear and +feel just what is going on. We read his books and echo Whitman's verdict +on them: "They take me outdoors! God bless outdoors!" And since God +_has_ blessed outdoors, we say, "God bless John Burroughs for taking us +out of doors with him!" + +Our writer never prates about nature, telling us to look and admire. He +loves the common, everyday life about him, sees it more intimately than +you or I see it, and tells about it so simply and clearly that he begets +a like feeling in his reader. It was enjoined of the early Puritans "to +walke honestlie in the sweete fields and woodes." How well our friend +has obeyed this injunction! + +And what an unobtrusive lover he is! Although it is through him that his +mistress stands revealed, it is not until we look closely that we spy +her adorer in the background, intent only on unveiling her charms. +How does he do this? First by succumbing himself--Nature's graces, her +inconsistencies, even her objectionable traits appeal to him. Like +the true lover, he is captivated by each of her phases, and surrenders +himself without reserve. Such homage makes him the recipient of her +choicest treasures, her most adorable revelations. + +(Illustration of Mr. Burroughs sitting for a Statuette. From a +photograph by Charles S. Olcott) + +I have mentioned Gilbert White's contributions to the literature about +nature: one must admire the man's untiring enthusiasm, but his book is +mainly a storehouse of facts; how rarely does he invest the facts with +charm! To pry into nature's secrets and conscientiously report them +seems to be the aim of the English parson; but we get so little of the +parson himself. What were his feelings about all these things he has +been at such pains to record? The things themselves are not enough. It +is not alluring to be told soberly:-- + + +Hedge-hogs abound in my garden and fields. The manner in which they eat +the roots of the plaintain in the grass walk is very curious; with their +upper mandible, which is much larger than the lower, they bore under +the plant, and so eat the root off upward, leaving the tuft of leaves +untouched. + + +And so on. By way of contrast, see how Mr. Burroughs treats a similar +subject. After describing the porcupine, mingling description and human +encounter, thereby enlisting the reader's interest, he says:-- + + +In what a peevish, injured tone the creature did complain of our unfair +tactics! He protested and protested, and whimpered and scolded like some +infirm old man tormented by boys. His game after we led him forth was +to keep himself as much as possible in the shape of a ball, but with two +sticks and the cord we finally threw him over on his back and exposed +his quill-less and vulnerable under side, when he fairly surrendered and +seemed to say, "Now you may do with me as you like." + + +Here one gets the porcupine and Mr. Burroughs too. + +Thoreau keeps his reader at arm's length, invites and repels at the +same time, piques one by his spiciness, and exasperates by his +opinionatedness. You want to see his bean-field, but know you would be +an intruder. He might even tell you to your face that he was happiest +the mornings when nobody called. He likes to advise and berate, but at +long range. Speaking of these two writers, Whitman once said, "Outdoors +taught Burroughs gentle things about men--it had no such effect upon +Thoreau." + +Richard Jefferies appeals to lovers of nature and lovers of literature +as well. He has the poet's eye and is a sympathetic spectator, but +seldom gives one much to carry away. His descriptions, musical as they +are, barely escape being wearisome at times. In his "Pageant of Summer" +he babbles prettily of green fields, but it is a long, long summer and +one is hardly sorry to see its close. In some of his writings he affects +one unpleasantly, gives an uncanny feeling; one divines the invalid +as well as the mystic back of them; there is a hectic flush, perhaps a +neurotic taint. Beautiful, yes, but not the beauty of health and sanity. +It is the same indescribable feeling I get in reading that pathetically +beautiful book, "The Road-Mender," by "Michael Fairless"--the gleam of +the White Gate is seen all along the Road, though the writer strives so +bravely to keep it hidden till it must open to let him pass. One of the +purest gems of Jefferies--"Hours of Spring"--has a pathos and haunting +melody of compelling poignancy. It is like a white violet or a hepatica. + +But with Mr. Burroughs we feel how preeminently sane and healthy he is. +His essays have the perennial charm of the mountain brooks that flow +down the hills and through the fertile valleys of his Catskill home. +They are redolent of the soil, of leaf mould, of the good brown earth. +His art pierces through our habitual indifference to Nature and kindles +our interest in, not her beauty alone, but in her rugged, uncouth, and +democratic qualities. + +Like the true walker that he describes, he himself "is not merely a +spectator of the panorama of nature, but is a participator in it. He +experiences the country he passes through,--tastes it, feels it, absorbs +it." Let us try this writer by his own test. He says: "When one tries to +report nature he has to remember that every object has a history which +involves its surroundings, and that the depth of the interest which it +awakens in us is in the proportion that its integrity in this respect is +preserved." He must, as we know Mr. Burroughs does, bring home the river +and the sky when he brings home the sparrow that he finds singing at +dawn on the alder bough; must make us see and hear the bird _on +the bough_, and this is worth a whole museum of stuffed and labeled +specimens. To do this requires a peculiar gift, one which our essayist +has to an unusual degree--an imagination that goes straight to the +heart of whatever he writes about, combined with a verbal magic that +re-creates what he has seen. Things are felicitously seen by Mr. +Burroughs, and then felicitously said. A dainty bit in Sidney's +"Apologie for Poetrie" seems to me aptly to characterize our author's +prose: "The uttering sweetly and properly the conceits of the minde, +which is the end of speech." + +One can pick out at random from his books innumerable poetic conceits; +the closed gentian is the "nun among flowers"; a patch of fringed +polygalas resembles a "flock of rose-purple butterflies" alighted on the +ground; the male and female flowers of the early everlasting are "found +separated from each other in well-defined groups, like men and women +in an old-fashioned country church"; "the note of the pewee is a human +sigh"; the bloodroot--"a full-blown flower with a young one folded in +a leaf beneath it, only the bud emerging, like the head of a papoose +protruding from its mother's blanket." Speaking of the wild orchids +known as "lady's-slippers," see the inimitable way in which he puts +you on the spot where they grow: "Most of the floral ladies leave +their slippers in swampy places in the woods, only the stemless one +(_Cypripedium acaule_) leaves hers on dry ground before she reaches the +swamp, commonly under evergreen trees where the carpet of pine needles +will not hurt her feet." Almost always he invests his descriptions with +some human touch that gives them rare charm--nature and human nature +blended--if it is merely the coming upon a red clover in England-- + + "The first red clover head just bloomed... but like + the people I meet, it has a ruddier cheek than those at home." + + +When we ask ourselves what it is that makes his essays so engaging, we +conclude it is largely due to their lucidity, spontaneity, and large +simplicity--qualities which make up a style original, fresh, convincing. +His writing, whether about nature, literature, science, or philosophy, +is always suggestive, potent, pithy; his humor is delicious; he says +things in a crisp, often racy, way. Yet what a sense of leisureliness +one has in reading him, as well as a sense of companionability! + +What distinguishes him most, perhaps, is his vivid and poetic +apprehension of the mere fact. He never flings dry facts at us, but +facts are always his inspiration. He never seeks to go behind them, and +seldom to use them as symbols, as does Thoreau. Thoreau preaches and +teaches always; Mr. Burroughs, never. The facts themselves fill him with +wonder and delight--a wonder and delight his reader shares. The seasons, +the life of the birds and the animals, the face of nature, the ever new, +the ever common day--all kindle his enthusiasm and refresh his soul. The +witchery of the ideal is upon his page without doubt, but he will not +pervert natural history one jot or tittle for the sake of making a +pretty story. His whole aim is to invest the fact with living interest +without in the least lessening its value as a fact. He does not deceive +himself by what he wants to be true; the scientist in him is always +holding the poet in check. Of all contemporary writers in this field, he +is the one upon whom we can always depend to be intellectually honest. +He has an abiding hankering after the true, the genuine, the real; +cannot stand, and never could stand, any tampering with the truth. Had +he been Cromwell's portrait painter, he would have delighted in his +subject's injunction: "Paint me as I am, mole and all." And he would +have made the mole interesting; he has done so, but that is a mole of +another color. + +This instinct for the truth being so strong in him, he knows it when he +sees it in others; he detects its absence, too; and has no patience and +scant mercy for those past-masters in the art of blinking facts,--those +natural-history romancers who, realizing that "the crowd must have +emphatic warrant," are not content with the infinite Variety of nature, +but must needs spend their art in the wasteful and ridiculous excess of +painting the lily, perfuming the violet, and giving to the rainbow an +added hue. Accordingly, when one warps the truth to suit his purpose, +especially in the realm of nature, he must expect this hater of shams +to raise a warning voice--"Beware the wolf in sheep's clothing!" But +he never cries "Wolf!" when there is no wolf, and he gives warm and +generous praise to deserving ones. + +It has surprised some of his readers, who know how kindly he is by +nature, and how he shrinks from witnessing pain, in beast or man, much +less inflicting it, to see his severity when nature is traduced--for he +shows all the fight and fury and all the defense of the mother bird +when her young are attacked. He won't suffer even a porcupine to be +misrepresented without bristling up in its defense. + + +I have said that he never preaches, never seeks to give a moral twist to +his observations of nature, but I recall a few instances where he does +do a bit of moralizing; for example, when he speaks of the calmness +and dignity of the hawk when attacked by crows or kingbirds: "He seldom +deigns to notice his noisy and furious antagonist, but deliberately +wheels about in that aerial spiral, and mounts and mounts till his +pursuers grow dizzy and return to earth again. It is quite original, +this mode of getting rid of an unworthy opponent--rising to heights +where the braggart is dazed and bewildered and loses his reckoning! I'm +not sure but it is worthy of imitation." Or, in writing of work on the +farm, especially stone-fence making, he speaks of clearing the fields of +the stones that are built into boundaries: "If there are ever sermons +in stones, it is when they are built into a stone wall--turning your +hindrances into helps, shielding your crops behind the obstacles to +your husbandry, making the enemies of the plough stand guard over its +products." But do we find such sermonizing irksome? + +Just as "all architecture is what you do to it when you look upon it," +so is all nature. Lovers of Nature muse and dream and invite their +own souls. They interpret themselves, not Nature. She reflects their +thoughts and minds, gives them, after all, only what they bring to +her. And the writer who brings much--much of insight, of devotion, of +sympathy--is sure to bring much away for his reader's delectation. Does +not this account for the sense of intimacy which his reader has with +the man, even before meeting him?--the feeling that if he ever does meet +him, it will be as a friend, not as a stranger? And when one does meet +him, and hears him speak, one almost invariably thinks: "He talks just +as he writes." To read him after that is to hear the very tones of his +voice. + + +We sometimes hear the expression, "English in shirt-sleeves," applied to +objectionable English; but the phrase might be applied in a commendatory +way to good English,--to the English of such a writer as Mr. +Burroughs,--simple, forceful language, with homely, everyday +expressions; English that shows the man to have been country-bred, +albeit he has wandered from the home pastures to distant woods and +pastures new, browsing in the fields of literature and philosophy, +or wherever he has found pasturage to his taste. Or, to use a figure +perhaps more in keeping with his main pursuits, he is one who has +flocked with birds not of a like feather with those that shared with him +the parent nest. Although his kin knew and cared little for the world's +great books, he early learned to love them when he was roaming his +native fields and absorbing unconsciously that from which he later +reaped his harvest. It is to writers of _this_ kind of "English +in shirt-sleeves" that we return again and again. In them we see +shirt-sleeves opposed to evening dress; naturalness, sturdiness, +sun-tan, and open sky, opposed to the artificial, to tameness, +constriction, and characterless conformity to prescribed customs. + +Do we not turn to writers of the first class with eagerness, slaking our +thirst, refreshing our minds at perennial springs? How are we glad that +they lead us into green pastures and beside still waters, away from +the crowded haunts of the conventional, and the respectably commonplace +society garb of speech! What matter if occasionally one even gives a +wholesome shock by daring to come into the drawing-room of our minds +in his shirt-sleeves, his hands showing the grime of the soil, and his +frame the strength that comes from battling with wind and weather? It is +the same craving which makes us say with Richard Hovey:-- + + + "I am sick of four walls and a ceiling; + I have need of the sky, + I have business with the grass." + + +But it will not do to carry this analogy too far in writing of Mr. +Burroughs lest it be inferred that I regard the author's work as having +in it something of the uncouth, or the ill-timed, or the uncultured. +His writing is of the earth, but not of the earth earthy. He sees divine +things underfoot as well as overhead. His page has the fertility of a +well-cultivated pastoral region, the limpidness of a mountain brook, the +music of our unstudied songsters, the elusive charm of the blue beyond +the summer clouds; it has, at times, the ruggedness of a shelving rock, +combined with the grace of its nodding columbines. + +Mr. Burroughs has told us, in that June idyl of his, "Strawberries," +that he was a famous berry-picker when a boy. It was with a peculiar +pleasure that I wandered with him one midsummer day over the same +meadows where he used to gather strawberries. My first introduction to +him as a writer, many years before, had been in hearing this essay read. +And since then never a year passes that I do not read it at least three +times--once in winter just to bring June and summer near; once in spring +when all outdoors gives promise of the fullness yet to be; and once in +the radiant summer weather when daisies and clover and bobolinks and +strawberries riot in one's blood, making one fairly mad to bury one's +self in the June meadows and breathe the clover-scented air. And it +always stands the test--the test of being read out in the daisy-flecked +meadows with rollicking bobolinks overhead. + + +What quality is it, though, that so moves and stirs us when Mr. +Burroughs recounts some of the simple happenings of his youth? What is +it in his recitals that quickens our senses and perceptions and makes +our own youth alive and real? It is paradise regained--the paradise of +one's lost youth. Let this author describe his boyhood pastures, going +'cross lots to school, or to his favorite spring, whatsoever it is--is +it the path that he took to the little red schoolhouse in the Catskills? +Is it the spring near his father's sugar bush that we see? No. One is a +child again, and in a different part of the State, with tamer scenery, +but scenery endeared by early associations. The meadow you see is the +one that lies before the house where you were born; you read of the +boy John Burroughs jumping trout streams on his way to school, but see +yourself and your playmates scrambling up a canal bank, running along +the towpath, careful to keep on the land side of the towline that +stretches from mules to boat, lest you be swept into the green, +uninviting waters of the Erie. On you run with slate and books; you +smell the fresh wood as you go through the lumber yard. Or, read another +of his boyish excursions, and you find yourself on that first spring +outing to a distant, low-lying meadow after "cowslips"; another, and you +are trudging along with your brother after the cows, stopping to +nibble spearmint, or pick buttercups by the way. Prosaic recollections, +compared to spring paths and trout brooks in the Catskill valleys, yet +this is what our author's writings do--re-create for each of us our own +youth, with our own childhood scenes and experiences, invested with a +glamour for us, however prosy they seem to others; and why? Because, +though nature's aspects vary, the human heart is much the same the world +over, and the writer who faithfully adds to his descriptions of nature +his own emotional experiences arouses answering responses in the soul of +his reader. + + +Perhaps the poet in Mr. Burroughs is nowhere more plainly seen than in +his descriptions of bird life, yet how accurately he gives their salient +points; he represents the bird as an object in natural history, but +ah! how much more he gives! Imagine our bird-lover describing a bird as +Ellery Channing described one, as something with "a few feathers, a hole +at one end and a point at the other, and a pair of wings"! We see the +bird Mr. Burroughs sees; we hear the one he hears. Long before I had the +memorable experience of standing with him on the banks of the Willowemoc +and listening at twilight to the slow, divine chant of the hermit +thrush, I had heard it in my dreams, because of that inimitable +description of its song in "Wake-Robin." It does, indeed, seem to be +"the voice of that calm, sweet solemnity one attains to in his best +moments." As one listens to its strain in the hush of twilight, the +pomp of cities and the pride of civilization of a truth seem trivial and +cheap. + +What a near, human interest our author makes us feel in the birds, how +we watch their courtships, how we peer into their nests, and how lively +is our solicitude for their helpless young swung in their "procreant +cradles," beset on all sides by foes that fly and creep and glide! And +not only does he make the bird a visible living creature; he makes it +sing joyously to the ear, while all nature sings blithely to the eye. We +see the bird, not as a mass of feathers with "upper parts bright blue, +belly white, breast ruddy brown, mandibles and legs black," as the +textbooks have it, but as a thing of life and beauty: "Yonder bluebird +with the earth tinge on his breast and the sky tinge on his back,--did +he come down out of heaven on that bright March morning when he told us +so softly and plaintively that, if we pleased, spring had come?" Who is +there in reading this matchless description of the bluebird that does +not feel the retreat of winter, that does not feel his pulse quicken +with the promise of approaching spring, that does not feel that the bird +did, indeed, come down out of heaven, the heaven of hope and promise, +even though the skies are still bleak, and the winds still cold? Who, +indeed, except those prosaic beings who are blind and deaf to the most +precious things in life? + +"I heard a bluebird this morning!" one exclaimed exultantly, so stirred +as to forget momentarily her hearer's incapacity for enthusiasm. "Well, +and did it sound any different from what it did last year, and the year +before, and the year before that?" inquired in measured, world-wearied +tones the dampener of ardors. No, my poor friend, it did not. And just +because it sounded the same as it has in all the succeeding springs +since life was young, it touched a chord in one's heart that must be +long since mute in your own, making you poor, indeed, if this dear +familiar bird voice cannot set it vibrating once more. + +THE END + + + + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Our Friend John Burroughs, by Clara Barrus + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK OUR FRIEND JOHN BURROUGHS *** + +***** This file should be named 6561.txt or 6561.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/6/5/6/6561/ + +Produced by Joyce M. Noverr + +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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