Rambles with John Burroughs

by R. J. H. De Loach

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

IV

On the following evening, which was the evening of March 5, Mr. Burroughs entered fully into a discussion of Emerson, Thoreau and Whitman. His conversation ran about as follows:

"Thoreau was somewhat eccentric and did not reach a large class of people like Emerson, who always savored of youth, and stimulates all who read him. Thoreau was original, however, and his books breathe the breath of real things. Whitman was larger than Thoreau, and encompassed the whole world, instead of a little nook of the woods like Walden Pond. He used to breakfast with us on Sunday mornings when we lived in Washington, and he never reached our house on time for meals. Mrs. Burroughs would fret and worry and get hot while the breakfast would get cold. One moment she would be at the door looking down the street, another she would be fanning with her apron, wishing that man would come on. Presently, Walt could be seen, and he would swing off the car, whistling as if a week was before him in which to get to his breakfast. To have him in our home was a great pleasure to us. He always brought sunshine and a robust, vigorous nature. Once Mrs. Burroughs had prepared an extra good meal, and Walt seemed to enjoy it more than usual. After eating most heartily he smiled, saying: 'Mrs. Burroughs knows how to appeal to the stomach as Mr. Burroughs does to the mind.' I often saw him on the front of a horse car riding up the streets of Washington. Far down the street, before I could see his face, his white beard and hair could be seen distinctly. He usually rode with one foot upon the front railing, and was with Peter Doyle, a popular cab driver, oftener than he was with any one else. Doyle was a large Irishman with much native wit, and was a favorite of Whitman's.

"The Atlantic is my favorite of American periodicals, and I like to see my papers printed in it. It seems always to hold to a very high standard of excellence. I remember well when the magazine was launched in November of 1857. I was teaching at the time, and having purchased a copy, in the town in which I was teaching, I returned home and remarked to Mrs. Burroughs that I liked the new magazine very much and thought it had come to stay. Somehow, the contents made me feel assured of its success. I was married in September before the magazine appeared in November. My first essay was printed in the Atlantic in November of 1860, three years after it had been launched. I was very proud, indeed, when I had received the magazine and found my own work in print in it. The essay was 'Expression' and was purely Emersonian. Now I knew it would never do for me to keep this up, if I hoped for great success. This essay was so like Emerson, that it fooled Lowell, the editor of the Atlantic, and Mr. Hill, the Rhetorician, who quoted a line from it giving Emerson as the author. (Here Mr. Burroughs laughed.) You know, it was not customary to sign names to articles written for periodicals in those days. I was so much worried about this Emersonian mask that I resolved to lay it off. So I began to write of things that I knew about, such as birds and flowers, the weather and all out-door Nature. I soon found that I had hit upon my feet, that I had found my own.