Burroughs, John
John (1837-), an American naturalist and author. Burroughs is Thoreau's most distinguished disciple. He was born at Roxbury, New York, a farmer's boy. He made and sold maple sugar to buy the books he longed for, but from which he learned less than from the outdoor world. He was successively a teacher, a journalist, a clerk in the treasury department, and a bank examiner. At last he returned to the life he loved, settling on a small farm in Esopus on the Hudson. Here he built a home suited to his tastes, gave it the beautiful name of "Riverby," and devoted his time to raising fruit and studying nature at first hand. A footpath leads over the hills from "Riverby" to "Slabsides," a rustic study built in the woods. Here Mr. Burroughs does his literary work. Occasionally he leaves home and farm for the city, but says: "Three or four days in the city is about all I can stand at a time." Mr. Burroughs' books include Wake Robin, Winter Sunshine, Locusts and Wild Honey, Indoor Studies, Walt Whitman--A Study, Signs and Seasons, Fresh Fields.
It seems natural to compare Burroughs with Thoreau. Hamilton Wright Mabie says: "Of the two, Thoreau had the more thorough formal education; but Burroughs shows keener susceptibility to formative influences of all kinds. Thoreau had the harder mind, the nature of greater resisting power. Burroughs is more sensitive to the atmosphere of his time. . . . He had the more open mind, the quicker sympathies, the wider range." Katherine Lee Bates writes: "Thoreau saw natural phenomena with eyes that searched beyond, and he reported, after all, less of this world than of the other. Burroughs is a plainer man, who takes warblers and hemlocks at their surface value and makes literature out of a cow."
He is often at "Slabsides"--sometimes for weeks or months at a time, though he always makes daily visits to the valley to look after the work in his vineyards and to visit the post-office at the railway station. He is a leisurely man, to whom haste and the nervous pursuit of wealth or fame are totally foreign. He thoroughly enjoys country loitering and when he gets a hint of anything interesting or new going on among the birds and little creatures of the fields, he likes to stop and investigate. His ears are remarkably quick and his eyes and sense of smell phenomenally acute, and much which to most of us would be unperceived or meaningless he reads as if it were an open book. Best of all, he has the power of imparting his enjoyment, and what he writes is full of outdoor fragrance, racy, piquant, and individual. His snap and vivacity are wholly unartificial. They are a part of the man--a man full of imagination and sensitiveness, a philosopher, a humorist, a hater of shams and pretension. The tenor of his life changes little from year to year, his affections remain steadfast, and this hardy, gray poet of things rural will continue, as ever, the warm-hearted nature enthusiast, and inspirer of the love of nature in others.--Clifton Johnson.
QUOTATIONS FROM BURROUGHS.
No one starts in the study of natural history with such advantages as he whose youth was passed on the farm. He has already got a great deal of it in his blood and bones; he has grown up in right relations with man and beast; the study comes easy and natural to him.
You must have the bird in your heart before you can find it in the bush.