[Illustration: Slabsides. From a photograph by Charles S. Olcott]
Mr. Burroughs seems to have much in common with Edward FitzGerald;
we may say of him as has been said of the translator of the
"Rubaiyat": "Perhaps some worship is given him . . . on account
of his own refusal of worship for things unworthy, or even for things
merely conventional." Like FitzGerald, too, our friend is a lover
of solitude; like him he shuns cities, gets his exhilaration from
the common life about him; is inactive, easy-going, a loiterer
and saunterer through life; and could say of himself as FitzGerald
said, on describing his own uneventful days in the country: "Such
is life, and I believe I have got hold of a good end of it." Another
point of resemblance: the American dreamer is like his English
brother in his extreme sensitiveness--he cannot bear to inflict or
experience pain. "I lack the heroic fibre," he is wont to say.
FitzGerald acknowledged this also, and, commenting on his own
over-sensitiveness and tendency to melancholy, said, "It is well
if the sensibility that makes us fearful of ourselves is diverted
to become a case of sympathy and interest with nature and mankind."
That this sensibility in Mr. Burroughs has been so diverted, all who
are familiar with his widespread influence on our national life and
literature will agree.
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