Rambles with John Burroughs

by R. J. H. De Loach

The peculiar mountain wilderness around Slabsides induced the Naturalist to name the woods about his home, Whitman Land, and now you will hear him speak of the border of "Whitman Land," when he approaches Slabsides. I have sometimes thought that Whitman's influence on him, more than Thoreau's, induced him to retreat to the woods and build Slabsides, where he could "follow out these lessons of the earth and air." So much of this elemental power or force has he seen in Whitman, that he honestly, and probably justly, thinks him "the strongest poetic pulse that has yet beat in America, or perhaps in Modern times." A study of the poet is to him an application of the laws of Nature to higher matters, and he pleads guilty to a "loving interest in Whitman and his work, which may indeed amount to one-sided enthusiasm." But this is honest, real, and not affected.

After a long study of the art of poetry and the artists, together with a thorough appreciation of form and beauty in all art, Burroughs declares there is once in a great while "born to a race or people, men who are like an eruption of life from another world, who belong to another order, who bring other standards, and sow the seeds of new and larger types; who are not the organs of the culture or modes of their time and whom their times for the most part decry and disown—the primal, original, elemental men. It is here in my opinion that we must place Whitman; not among the minstrels and edifiers of his age, but among its prophets and saviors. He is nearer the sources of things than the popular poets—nearer the founder and discoverer, closer akin to the large, fervent, prophetic, patriarchal men, who figure in the early heroic ages. His work ranks with the great primitive books. He is of the type of the skald, the bard, the seer, the prophet." In another place, Burroughs thinks that one can better read Whitman after reading the Greeks, than after reading our finer artists, and I have found this true.

We cannot wonder that he finds Whitman "the one mountain in our literary landscape," though, as he appropriately says there are many beautiful hills. Tall and large, he grew more beautiful in his declining years, and "the full beauty of his face and head did not appear till he was past sixty." However he was dressed, and wherever he was, one could not fail to be impressed "with the clean, fresh quality of the man." To me, his poems have this same clean, fresh quality, and I never read one of them that I don't feel far more satisfied with my lot.

Whitman says: "I do not call one greater and one smaller. That which fills its place is equal to any." To him, as to any prophet of the soul, greatness is filling one's place, and the poor get as much consolation out of this almost, as they do from Christ's beatitude: "Blessed are the poor for they shall inherit the earth." To make a world, it takes many kinds of individuals, and Whitman did not rank them severally according to money, culture and social position. If a man filled his place, he was equal to any one else, for that is the whole duty of man.

He did not grovel in the earthly and disgusting, as one of our "artistic" critics has said above. He alluded to many things that the over-nice could call disgusting, but he saw and painted only the beautiful in it all. For an instance that happens to come to my mind, he alludes to the battle of Alamo, but overlooks the military display, the common part of the slaughter. This may be found in any battle, and why Alamo and Goliad, if only to picture an army! Certainly there were more imposing dress parades than that. But after Fannin had surrendered and had accepted honorable terms that were offered by the Mexican General Urrea, Santa Anna orders the entire body of United States Soldiers executed, and on that bright and beautiful sunshiny Palm Sunday, they were marched out upon the neighboring prairie and shot down in cold blood, and their bodies committed to the flames! Such a horrible picture has not been recorded elsewhere in the history of this republic. What then does Whitman say?

"Tis the tale of the murder in cold blood of four hundred and twelve young men.
Retreating, they formed in a hollow square, with their baggage for breastworks;
Nine hundred lives out of the surrounding enemy's, nine times their number was the price they took in advance;
Their colonel was wounded and their ammunition gone;
They treated for an honorable capitulation, received writing and seal, gave up their arms, and marched back prisoners of war.
They were the glory of the race of rangers;
Matchless with horse, rifle, song, supper, courtship,
Large, turbulent, generous, handsome, proud, and affectionate,
Bearded, sunburnt, drest in the free costume of hunters,
Not a single one over thirty years of age.
The second First-day morning they were brought out in squads and massacred—it was beautiful early summer;
The work commenced about five o'clock, and was over by eight.

None obeyed the command to kneel;
Some made a mad and helpless rush—some stood stark and straight;
A few fell at once, shot in the temple or heart—the living and dead lay together;
The maimed and mangled dug in the dirt—the newcomers saw them there;
Some, half-killed, attempted to crawl away;
These were despatched with bayonets, or battered with the blunts of muskets;
A youth not seventeen years old seiz'd his assassin till two more came to release him;
The three were all torn, and covered with the boy's blood.

At eleven o'clock began the burning of the bodies:
That is the tale of the murder of the four hundred and twelve young men."

After reading this picture of the horrible battle or slaughter at Goliad, who wonders that the battle cry at San Jacinto was, "Remember the Alamo!" or "Remember Goliad!" And still less do we wonder that the Mexicans, while scattered after the battle could be heard on all sides, "Me no Alamo!" "Me no Goliad!" Our poet has given the best picture we shall ever get of the Alamo and Goliad. The burden of his big, warm heart was to portray in vivid colors, the tragedy of the four hundred and twelve young men, and how manly they suffered.

John Burroughs has observed from the notes of Mr. Charles W. Eldridge, that Emerson was not only an admirer of Whitman, but that every year from 1855 to 1860, he sought Whitman in his Brooklyn home. The two men were together much, but Walt never sought Emerson. When he was invited by Emerson to Concord, he refused to go, perhaps because he feared that he would see too much of that "literary coterie that then clustered there, chiefly around Emerson."