The silver state. [volume] (Winnemucca, Nev.) 1909-1925, 1919-12-18

of his types, be they fisher folk iron the little coast cities of the United
boys, farmers. doctors, lawyers, or bankers Distinguishing occupaional
the exact ratio in which endeayor, ambition, concentration, or the lack of
these, impel, direct, or subjugate what may be termed the natural tenden-
wonld ho strange ombinatton Of ycumstance for instance hat would
bring about a transformation of the woodsman in the Minnesota forests
into the coal miner of West Virginia or Pennsylvania.
The experimental alchemist who would seek to deal only with what he
might regard as the most interesting things in human experience the people
themselves. would perhaps be guided in his laboratory work by the results
of what might appear to be casual if not haphazard, experimentation. The
confirmed theorist and careful analyst, inclined to exclude the consdera-
ton of occupatonal influences, would perhaps find a sufficiently engrOssing
field in his favorite realm of so-caned environmental cause and effect His
studies would be interesting, and his conclusions at least entertaining
Anyone would be inclined to follow his observations and deductions were
he TO retrace' fr instance tn career OF Bill Nye' American philosopher
and humorist, even from the days when he first became really famous.
Bill Ne, a the world knew him, was IS distnchvely a product of the
sage-covered American desert as we're the characters of whom he wrote so
Interestingly. A native of the woods country in the state of Maine. Edgar
Wilson Nye was not, apparently, destined to occur even the modest niche
which history has accorded him in the worlds great hall of fame. Through
student school teacher, and anerward az a lawyer. in a then somewhat
undeveloped section of Wisconsin, it is quite safe to conclude that there
had 20 to him not yer the slightest inthmaion that before his forueth
year he wa to accomplish much.
Opportunity new called him, in the sense that many seen to believe
some such call comes to every nan But the urge IF the Great West which
had made possible for him the migration from Maine to Wisconsin. later,
in 1876 or thereabouts, served to inspire a new and greater invasion of
nj ne us LAY regarded a Amos unexplored country. Wyoming was
the destination sought chiefly, as Mr.. Nye aftrward explained. because that
was as far as his ticket allowed him to ride. There, however, amid the
seDrus n ue greasewood' with III desert inc the mountains forming
a n altogether strange picture in the yes of a none toe dauntess invader.
the foothills of the Rocky Mountains he gained a world vidon-a percep-
ton which, had he learned to know the hearts of men who live in the great
open places, permitted him to know all the people oft the world at their best
Perhaps n o seriously in search of IN opportunity o become famous
would have chosen either Cheyenne or Laramie City, Wyoming. il the late
seventies or early eighties. Is it that those to whom there comes. in such
secluded places, the worlds sincere recognition OF worth are only pictur-
esquely great? Probably not Bill Ne, the cultivated and erudite phioso-
pher and humorts- the Bill Nye whom the world came to know, and whose
works it cam to admire-bor none of the homely marks of the desert
country. 1t was only that n few short years which he spent in associa-
ton with mountain country and its people brought the transition, the vision
which the narrower places might not have made possible.
The assertion may be made, of course. that Bill Nye would have evolved
the sam quaint and entertaining philosophy in some place other than the
This will be admitted. But it would not have been the same, and nor than
the products of the pei of Bret Harte. or Joaquin Miller. or Mark Twin, or
writers ever felt the inspiration which the boundless desert. the mountains.
and their marvellous days and matchless night characterization Science
Monitor.