The Maryville times. (Maryville, Tenn.) 1884-1944, 1915-02-11

g with awe and wonder and joy, anC
2 with il tense curiosity"
2 The poet naturallst's love for the
3 old home farm and the scenes o.
childhood's days makes us want tC
be foDder of the scenes of our child
hood and the associations of our
youth. How enchanting to Mr..
Burroughs are the old fields in
which he played when a mere child !;
in which be gathered the fruits with
his fal her and mother and sisters
and brothers, Rpc0lleC tiOns of these
earlier daye compel him to make
trips each June to distant fields for
wild strawberries, or along the
borders of the wood for black rasp-
berries, and | never go without
thinking Of Mother. You could
not see all that l bring home With
me in my pail on such occasions; if
you could. you would see the traces
of daisies and buttercups and bobo-
links, and the blue skies, with
Thoughts Of Mother AMI the Oh
Home, that date from my youth,
| usually eat some of the bprri, 8 III
bread and milk, as I was wont to
do in the old days, and am, for the
moment, as near boy again as it
is possible for me to be-"
when I began, in my twenty
fifth or twenty sixth wear, to write
about tt brus, | found that | had
only to u1pack the memories of the
farm boy within me to get at the
main things about the common
ones. Take that farm bow out Of
i! my books and out of the pages in
which be is latent as we'll as visiDIy
active, and you have robbed them
of sOmething.vital and fundamental,
you have taxi from the soil much
of the trrtinty "
But though Mr. Burroughs yearly
trOds the paths familiar to his boy
hoods feet, the trip is lonesome
indeed, and somewhat sOrrowful,
because of former FOOTBALLS that are
silent and faces once 80 familiar
which are now absent. Hear how
these memories fill him as he misses
the loved ones. az expressed in his
THE RETURN
He sought the old scenes with eager feet
The scenes he had known as Il boy;
"Oh, for draught of those fountains sweet,
And 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 mothers 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 60 back to his youth.
This bio raphy of Mr.. Burroughs
is as full of lessons as it is of lowell
ness. Listen to these bits of
philosophy in his letters:
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 str myth did not warrant it,
that we had gone beyond our
resources"
There seems to he this terrible
alternative put to every man on
entering the world, CONQUER OR
BE CONQUERED. 1t is what the
wave says to the swimmer, Use me
or drown; what gravity says to the
babe, Use me or fall;' what winds
say to the sailor. Use me or be
wrecked" what the pa sions say
to every one of US, Drive or be
driven "
But 8 the simple life from whose |
charm !ur author cannot free him
self. listen to these lines from his
essay An Outlook Upon Ljf-":
II II r,u.. j,' praiI t = sin Pc
v.d e., 0
found 1t good .. | love a small
house, plain clothes, simple living