The Last Harvest

COPYRIGHT, 1922, BY HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
But who is he with modest looks And clad in homely russet brown? He murmurs near the running brooks A music sweeter than their own.
He is retired as noontide dew, Or fountain in a noon-day grove; And you must love him, ere to you He will seem worthy of your love.
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.
Wordsworth

Most of the papers garnered here were written after fourscore years—after the heat and urge of the day—and are the fruit of a long life of observation and meditation.
The author's abiding interest in Emerson is shown in his close and eager study of the Journals during these later years. He hungered for everything that concerned the Concord Sage, who had been one of the most potent influences in his life. Although he could discern flies in the Emersonian amber, he could not brook slight or indifference toward Emerson in the youth of to-day. Whatever flaws he himself detected, he well knew that Emerson would always rest secure on the pedestal where long ago he placed him. Likewise with Thoreau: If shortcomings were to be pointed out in this favorite, he wished to be the one to do it. And so, before taking Thoreau to task for certain inaccuracies, he takes Lowell to task for criticizing Thoreau. He then proceeds, not without evident satisfaction, to call attention to Thoreau's slips as an observer and reporter of nature; yet in no carping spirit, but, as he himself has said: Not that I love Thoreau less, but that I love truth more.
The Short Studies in Contrasts, the Day by Day notes, Gleanings, and the Sundown Papers which comprise the latter part of this, the last, posthumous volume by John Burroughs, were written during the closing months of his life. Contrary to his custom, he wrote these usually in the evening, or, less frequently, in the early morning hours, when, homesick and far from well, with the ceaseless pounding of the Pacific in his ears, and though incapable of the sustained attention necessary for his best work, he was nevertheless impelled by an unwonted mental activity to seek expression.