Again we find him delighting himself and the reading public on his out-door observations around Riverby (1894), his stone house by the Hudson, in the preface to which he expresses the belief that this is to be his last volume of out-door essays. Whitman: A Study (1896), and Literary Values (1902), are books for the critic and are fully up to the standard in that field of activity. This book on Whitman is claimed by many scholars to be the best criticism of Whitman yet published. It is a strong defense of the "Good Gray Poet" and his literary method. Beginning with the year 1900, and perhaps a little earlier, there developed a great demand from the public for a larger crop of nature books and a great many of our good writers, seeing this demand, began to try to fill it whether they were naturalists or not, and the consequence was that a great many fake nature stories got before the reading public. This, of course, bore heavily on Mr. Burroughs' mind who had lived so long with nature trying to understand her ways and laws, who in 1903 issued his protest against this practice in a strong article, "Real and Sham Natural History," in the March Atlantic Monthly of that year. This paper brought forth a warfare between the two schools of nature study in America, the romantic school and the scientific or the sane or sober school, which did not end till about 1908, and in fact, a little fruit of the controversy still crops out here and there in magazines and papers. In this controversy Burroughs won the battle of his life. The main point at issue was: Do animals have reason to any degree in the sense that man has reason? Burroughs claimed that they do not, and the romantic school claimed that they do, and to prove the claim hatched up a great many fairy tales about the animals and declared that these statements were made from observations under their own eyes. Before it was over, Burroughs had won the strong support of Mr. Frank M. Chapman, the ornithologist; Dr. Wm. M. Wheeler, W. F. Ganong, and Mr. Roosevelt, then the President of the United States, together with a great many other distinguished naturalists.
It was natural and fitting that Burroughs should be the first one to come to the rescue of popular natural history, when it seemed to be falling into the hands of romancers, as he was and is the dean of American nature writers and is our best authority on the behavior of animals under natural conditions. The result of this controversy was the publication of Ways of Nature (1905), containing all the papers which were the outcome of the currents of thought and inquiry that the controversy set going in his mind. The volume contains many fine illustrations of his claims and is a complete answer to the many attacks made upon him by his enemies in this controversy.
At the urgent request of his many friends he collected in a volume and published his poems, Bird and Bough (1906), which for perfect cadence and simple sweetness have not been surpassed by any of our minor poems. In 1903, he went west with President Roosevelt and spent the month of April in Yellowstone Park studying natural history with him. The President surprised Mr. Burroughs in his broad knowledge and enthusiastic study of nature. The little volume, Camping and Tramping with Roosevelt (1907), contains an account of this trip and brings out Mr. Roosevelt's strong points as a naturalist. During the last few years his philosophy has been ripening and a great deal of his energy has been spent in working out natural philosophy rather than natural history, though he has never gotten away from the latter. His last volume of essays, Leaf and Tendril (1908), contains a resume of his studies along this line and are, perhaps, the most readable of all of his late books. Another volume of papers is now in the hands of the printers, which will likely appear in print next spring (1912).
The names and dates of appearance of his many volumes are as follows, and mark the evolution of his mind:
1867—Notes on Walt Whitman, as Poet and Person.
1871—Wake Robin.
1875—Winter Sunshine.
1877—Birds and Poets.
1879—Locusts and Wild Honey.
1881—Pepacton and Other Sketches.
1884—Fresh Fields.
1886—Signs and Seasons.
1889—Indoor Studies.
1894—Riverby.
1896—Whitman: A Study.
1900—The Light of Day.
1902—Literary Values.
1902—John James Audubon, A Biography.
1904—Far and Near.
1905—Ways of Nature.
1906—Bird and Bough.
1907—Camping and Tramping with Roosevelt.
1908—Leaf and Tendril.
THE DEN, BURROUGHS' STUDY NEAR HIS STONE MANSION, RIVERBY, AT WEST PARK
This does not include a great many papers that were never printed in book form, nor many of his books and parts of them edited by other writers. This list is a good account of a life well spent, and treats of almost all phases of our American natural history. In the main, Mr. Burroughs has been a stay-at-home pretty much all his life, though he has been about some. In 1872, he was sent to England, and returned there of his own accord in the eighties. An account of these visits will be found in the two volumes, Winter Sunshine and Fresh Fields. From Alaska, 1899, and the island of Jamaica, 1902, he brought back material for most of the volume, Far and Near. In recent years he has visited the Golden West and Honolulu, an account of which we shall doubtless see in his volume now in press. The best part of all his travels is undoubtedly his return to the simple life at West Park and Roxbury, New York. His little bark covered study near by Riverby, where he has done so much of his writing, was his first love up to a few years ago. At present, his Roxbury summer home, Woodchuck Lodge, seems to be his place of greatest interest. In either place, he can lounge about as he sees fit and feel at ease, as he can no where else.
Wherever he goes he continues writing in his ripe old age, and only last summer (1911), completed eight new essays while on an extended stay at Woodchuck Lodge. In the morning, from eight till twelve, he does his best work, and in the afternoon he rambles around the old place of his birth and among his neighbors. In the preparation of the above eight essays, he writes: "I lost eight pounds of flesh which I do not expect to regain." He is now beginning to "serenely fold his hands and wait" for the inevitable end, though the chances are he will live many years and win many battles against Nature Fakers and put many awkward students of nature in the paths of righteous observation. Strong and healthy, he can climb fences, ascend mountain heights with very little fatigue. Writing of his experiences with a party of friends in California, March, 1911, he says: "During the mountain climbing the other day, I set the pace and tired them all out. Mr. Brown, of the Dial, is sixty-six, but he had to stop and eat a sandwich and have some coffee before the top was reached." Not many of the school of literary men to which he belongs are now living. But what does he say to this: "The forces that destroy us are going their appointed ways, and if they turned out or made an exception on our account, the very foundations of the universe would be impeached." If needs be, I am sure he can boldly and fearlessly,
"Sustained and soothed
By an unfaltering trust, approach the end,
Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch
About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams,"