III
Mr. Burroughs was teaching when his first essay was accepted and printed in the Atlantic Monthly, November, 1860. He continued teaching till 1863, when he went to Washington City to enlist in the army, but finding many objections to such a life, he entered the Treasury Department in January, 1864. Here he served in various capacities, and finally became chief of the organization division of the Comptroller of Currency. In 1873, he resigned to become receiver of a bank in Middletown, N. Y. He was afterwards made bank examiner in the Eastern part of New York state, which position he held till 1885. Since then he has relied on his writings and his fruit farm for a living.
He has always been an optimist, and at 72 years of age is full of sunshine. In religious belief he is perhaps, a fatalist. He is willing to bide his time fearlessly, for his portion. His experience is largely a home experience, though he has been to England twice, to Alaska once, and to the island of Jamaica, and for the past two years has spent his winters in California and Hawaii. These visits have each been the inspiration for several essays. His literary work has always been a labor of love, and with these few exceptions, together with several short papers on men and literature, his essays have been the outgrowth of his contact with Nature up on the Hudson River and around Washington City. His books number 18 volumes of essays and one volume of poems. Since the recent school of Nature fakers has come so prominently into public notice, his mind has shown remarkable activity in his efforts to hold Nature writers to the truth. Only a few years ago he added some land over the mountain to his estate, and in a beautiful rich valley, about a mile from Riverby, he has built with his own hands, out of rough bark-covered slabs, his rustic retreat called "Slabsides." For several years he has spent part of his time in this primitive-looking house, which he says was built because he wished to get back to Nature. Many books and periodicals are in this sylvan home, and its owner has often spent days at a time there, communing with Nature, and taking notes on the return of Spring, the songs of new bird visitors, and the ways of wood folks. Nothing has ever made so deep an impression on the writer as the sight of Mr. Burroughs in and around "Slabsides."
No man of the century has put himself in an attitude to get more out of life than Burroughs. His peace of mind and satisfaction with life as he finds it and makes it, are largely responsible for his power as a writer. No man can read his sane, wholesome truths about Nature, men, and literature, without growing better and more satisfied with life, and more resigned to the ways of the Powers that be.
Most of what follows is the result of conversations in the evenings with Mr. Burroughs on natural history, literature and people, the three things about which he talks very freely when you know him. The first evening he was with us the discussion led to his recent essay, "The Divine Soil," and he, with a soul full of this interesting subject, went into the matter at length, giving his idea of Man and Nature, of the possible age of the earth, and the gradual wearing away of the continents. As well as I remember, he said:
"It will take only about 6,000,000 years—a brief period in the history of creation—for all the continents to wear away, at the present rate. In trying to indicate what is meant by the long periods of time that it has taken for Nature to reach the present stage of development, one author used this figure: That it had existed and had been forming as long as it would take to wear away the Alps Mountains by sweeping across them with a thin veil once every thousand years.
"What progress man is making upon the earth! At the present rate, he will soon be able to harness the winds, the waves of the sea and even the tide waters. He will store up electricity in batteries to be used at his will. All these things will become necessary when the population grows out of proportion to our present resources. No doubt man's progress will be as great in the future as it has been in the past, and just what he will be found doing when all the present supplies of Nature are exhausted, no one can tell. One thing becomes evident, he will learn to use much of the energy that is now lost. Necessity will soon become the mother of many inventions.
"The largeness of the Universe has always been a subject of much thought for me. I like to think that we are making our voyage on such a large scale. The Heaven and Hell that we used to hear so much about, are no longer considered the one up and the other down. There is no up nor down in Nature, except relative to our own earth. The farthest visible star, so many million times a million miles away, is only a short distance in infinite space, from which we could doubtless see as much further, and as many more worlds as we now see from our old earth. I like Whitman because his largeness puts one in tune with Nature in the larger sense. No other poet with which I am acquainted, gives one such large and wholesome views about the world in which we live."
AT THE BARS IN FRONT OF THE OLD HOME BURIAL GROUNDS