The Face of the Fields

by Dallas Lore Sharp

Here, again, is Izaak Walton, as honest a man as Chaucer—a lover of nature, a writer on angling; who knew little about angling, and less about nature; whose facts are largely fancies; but—what of it? Walton quotes, as a probable fact, that pickerel hatch out of the seeds of the pickerelweed; that toads are born of fallen leaves on the bottoms of ponds. He finds himself agreeing with Pliny “that many flies have their birth, or being, from a dew that in the spring falls upon the leaves of the trees”; and, quoting the divine du Bartas, he sings:—

So slow Boötes underneath him sees

In th’ icy isles those goslings hatch’d of trees,

Whose fruitful leaves, falling into the water,

Are turn’d, they say, to living fowls soon after.

But the “Compleat Angler” is not a scientific work on fishes, nor a handbook on angling for anglers. It is a book for all that are lovers of literature; for “all that are lovers of virtue; and dare trust in his providence; and be quiet; and go a Angling.”

This is somewhat unscientific, according to our present light; but, wonderful as it seemed to Walton, it was all perfectly natural according to his light. His facts are faulty, yet they are the best he had. So was his love the best he had; but that was without fault, warm, deep, intense, sincere.

Our knowledge of nature has so advanced since Walton’s time, and our attitude has so changed, that the facts of nature are no longer enough for literature. We know all that our writer knows; we have seen all that he can see. He can no longer surprise us; he can no longer instruct us; he can no longer fool us. The day of the marvelous is past; the day of the cum laude cat and the magna cum laude pup is past, the day of the things that I alone have seen is past; and the day of the things that I, in common with you, have honestly felt, is come.

There should be no suggestion in a page of nature-writing that the author—penetrated to the heart of some howling summer camp for his raw material; that he ever sat on his roof or walked across his back yard in order to write a book about it. But nature-books, like other books, are gone for that way—always and solely for the pot. Such books are “copy” only—poor copy at that. There is nothing new in them; for the only thing you can get by going afar for it is a temptation to lie; and no matter from what distance you fetch a falsehood—even from the top of the world—you cannot disguise the true complexion of it. Take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, and you will find nothing new there; ascend into heaven or make your bed in hell for copy, as is the fashion nowadays—But you had better look after your parish, and go faithfully about your chores; and if you have a garden with a tortoise in it, and you love them, and love to write about them, then write.

Nature-writing must grow more and more human, personal, interpretative. If I go into the wilderness and write a book about it, it must be plain to my reader that “the writing of the book was only a second and finer enjoyment of my holiday in the woods.” If my chippy sings, it must sing a chippy’s simple song, not some gloria that only “the careless angels know.” It must not do any extraordinary thing for me; but it may lead me to do an extraordinary thing—to have an extraordinary thought, or suggestion, or emotion. It may mean extraordinary things to me; things that have no existence in nature, whose beginnings and ends are in me. I may never claim that I, because of exceptional opportunities, or exceptional insight, or exceptional powers of observation, have discovered these marvelous things here in the wilds of Hingham. My pages may be anthropomorphic, human; not, however, because I humanize my bees and toads, but because I am human, and nature is meaningful ultimately only as it is related to me. I must not confuse myself with nature; nor yet “struggle against fact and law to develop and keep” my “own individuality.” I must not anthropomorphize nature; never denature nature; never follow my own track through the woods, imagining that I am on the trail of a better-class wolf or a two-legged bear. I must never sentimentalize over nature again—write no more about “Buzz-Buzz and Old Man Barberry”; write no more about wailing winds and weeping skies; for mine is not “a poet’s vision dim,” but an open-eyed, scientific sight of things as they actually are. Once I have seen them, gathered them, if then they turn to poetry, let them turn. For so does the squash turn to poetry when it is brought in from the field. It turns to pie; it turns to poetry; and it still remains squash.