. . . That which hinders
me with men, makes me strong with impersonal Nature, and admits me
to her influences. . . . I am lacking in moral fibre, but am tender
and sympathetic."]
To see Mr. Burroughs stand and fondly gaze upon the fruitful,
well-cultivated fields that his father had cared for so many years,
to hear him say that the hills are like father and mother to him,
was to realize how strong is the filial instinct in him--that and
the home feeling. As he stood on the crest of the big hill by the
pennyroyal rock, looking down on the peaceful homestead in the
soft light of a midsummer afternoon, his eye roamed fondly over
the scene:--
"How fertile and fruitful it is now, but how lonely and bleak the
old place looked in that winter landscape the night I drove up from
the station in the moonlight after hearing of Father's death! There
was a light in the window, but I knew Father would not meet me at
the door this time--beleaguering winter without, and Death within!
"Father and Mother! I think of them with inexpressible love and
yearning, wrapped in their last eternal sleep. They had, for them,
the true religion, the religion of serious, simple, hard-working.
God-fearing lives. To believe as they did, to sit in their pews, is
impossible to me--the Time-Spirit has decreed otherwise; but all I
am or can be or achieve is to emulate their virtues--my soul can be
saved only by a like truthfulness and sincerity.
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