Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1921-03-30
Sketch of Life

John Burroughs was the venerable
dean of nature writers in the. United
states. Through Il score of books he
shared with countless readers his
lifelong intimacy with birds. bees.
flowers and the whole QUITO doors
His highly developed powers Of o.
sefVatlon and the charm Of his inter
pretations were the marvel Of his
critics.
His flowing White beard, his kindly
mein, his whole habit of life, and his
literary style We're rather reninis-
cent of that famous New England
school of essayists n generation or
two before him. His earliest writ
ing. on Expression" was at one time
widely mistaken for the work OF En-
crSon, Il close reader of whom Bur
rouShs had been from youth His
later works on nature suggested
something of Thoreau. but, as critics
said. Burroughs was the more soci-
able writer
He learned to love nature when he
drove cows at his rth-place farm,
RoXbury, among the Catskills. in New
York State, but anything like liter
airy composition was a bugbear to
him as a youth. The story is told OF
how when. he was "A, in common with
the members of his class at school.
he was required TO write l. lines of
original composition. He copied
something out of a comic almanac.
His theft was detected. Again in des-
pera ton upon his second trial he paid
Jay Gould, his class mate 80 cents for
a II line verse which he handed in as
his own.
He was born in 1897 In 1869 he went
to Washington with something of an
inclination to enlist in the Union Ar
my, but he decided to seek a govern
ment office. 1t is related that with
only few of his poems as creden-
tials, he walked into the Treasury De
partment and asked for job. 1t was ;
agreed that his vernal verses really /
smelt of the woods. and smacked OF .
sincerity. He would be a safe man
TO watch the treasury vaults. He
aireed to take The place. AT q little !
desk, facing the huge iron vault .
where he kept tabs on those who
went to handle the 1900, 900 stored !
=,
to relieve his inconsistencies. The re-
suit was his first book, Wake Rob
in"
Some years later, after work as a
treasury clerk and d national bank
examiner had Melted him some saw
ings, he bought few acres at West /
Park on the Hudson, where among
the loaded trellises of VINEYARD he
found more pleasure than in the
closets of greenbacks" There he re-
newed his emotional intercourse with !
Nature, building a real house over
looking the river--just above POUCH /
leepsie. When rural civilization
pressed a little close about him, he
built his ''Slabsides" cabin a mile on
two back in the woods =
He did not go at his studies with
the set determination of an herbalist.
but took life easily, and wrote breez-
lily when the spiris moved him of the
secrets of nature. He never made
much of the discovery of new species.
and nothing of cataloguing them, but
delighted in finding for himself and
revealing to others the charms Of
close contact with the birds, bees and
flowers. The essence of his philo-
sophy was always bright, in agree
ment with Browning, that "Alls well /
with tife world"
The titles of his books included
winter Sunshine" "Locusts and
Wild Honey" Fresh Fields" In
door Studies" Birds and Poets"
"Signs and Seasons THE Light of |
Discussions from the |
of the Naturalist" Lift
erary Values" and ways of Ma
ture." He was a friend of Walt
Whitman and one of his books was
an appreciation of him. He was al
so a boon companion of Theodore
Roosevelt in nature studies. During
Col. Roosevelt's occasional clashes
with mature fakers'' and those who
charged him with brutal instincts iii I
his hunting trips. the venerable Bur
roughs always came to the Colonel's