Bliss Perry thinks that on account "of the amplitude of his imagination," and "the majesty with which he confronts the eternal realities," instead of the absolute perfection of his poems, he is bound to a place somewhere among the immortals.
Mr. Perry has made a critical study of Whitman, and his judgment and conclusions are charitable and will stand. No critic can ever give an adequate conception of Whitman's poems. As he, himself said, "They will elude you." In order to understand in any degree his eccentricities and his poetic freedom, one must go to the poems and read them as a whole. One will either turn away from them for a breath of air, or he will be forever won by them.
I happened to be among the latter class, and I must agree with his most enthusiastic critics, that he is a real poet, and one of the few that make you think and feel. Most of our other American poets have said some pretty things in verse but are not elemental. They lack the "high seriousness," the all-essential quality of a real poet. This quality we cannot fail to recognize in Whitman, from the beginning to the end, if we tolerate him.
Mr. Stedman's paper on Whitman, though less readable than Burroughs', and far more labored than Mr. Perry's, contains many excellent estimates of Whitman's democracy, and a lover of Whitman cannot afford to be ignorant of his fine judgments. He thinks that Whitman is well equipped as a poet—having had such genuine intercourse "With Nature in her broadest and minutest forms."
JOHN BURROUGHS AND THE BIRDS
One day while I was at West Park, John Burroughs and I had started over the mountains to Slabsides, and just as we had crossed the railroad we noticed a small flock of English sparrows in some nearby trees. We both halted suddenly and after a moment's silence he said: "I think the English sparrow will eventually develop some form of song. Listen to that suppressed sound so near to song! I have often wondered if all birds do not develop song by degrees, and if so, how long it takes or has taken such birds as the thrushes, the song sparrows and the wrens to develop their songs. Bird songs have always been an interesting study to me." It would be hard for me to conceive of one of his books being complete without some mention of bird life in it. I am sure he would not attempt to complete a Nature book and leave birds out of it.
One of our first American Bird Societies, which was organized in 1900, was named after him, but I am not sure that this ever pleased him, as he was not an ornithologist in any restricted sense, and he certainly sees how much better it is for the organization to have been renamed and after Audubon, our greatest Ornithologist. Whenever I have been with him, and a bird of any kind appeared in sight or in hearing, he was sure to observe it first, and has been the means of sharpening my eyes and ears. Each of the little stories that follow, has been the result directly, or indirectly, of my walks in the woods with him. No school library is quite complete without a copy of his Wake Robin as it savors of that peculiar delight with which out-door life imbues him, as no other book he ever wrote, and I must say, puts one in tune with Nature as no book with which I am acquainted. The two essays Spring at the Capitol and The Return of the Birds, give one the true spirit of the Naturalist, and have the best spirit of the out-door world in every paragraph and sentence.
Mr. Sharpe rightly thinks that Burroughs is more than a scientist, for he is always hiding his science in love and genuine interest, though he is generally true to the facts. As an evidence of his genuineness he refuses to go to Nature in 'the reporter fashion, but must camp and tramp with her' in order for the truth to sink in and become part of him. Then he gives up only that which has clung to him, and certainly we do not find in his writings anything but the reflection of some phase of Nature. Go to the fields and the mountains with him, and you will soon be impressed that he is on speaking terms with bird life in almost every detail. This sincerity has impressed me as much as his ability to see and read Nature.
The Tragedy of the Chickadee's Nest