The one a simple farmer whose interests are circumscribed
by the hills which surround the farm on which as children they were
reared; the other, whose interests in the early years were seemingly
just as circumscribed, but who felt that nameless something--that
push from within--which first found its outlet in a deeper interest
in the life about him than his brothers ever knew; and who later
felt the magic of the world of books; and, still later, the need of
expression, an expression which finally showed itself in a masterly
interpretation of country life and experiences. The same heredity
here, the same environment, the same opportunities--yet how different
the result! The farmer has tended and gathered many a crop from the
old place since they were boys, but has been blind and deaf to all
that has there yielded such a harvest to the other. That other,
a plain, unassuming man, "standing at ease in nature," has become
a household word because of all that he has contributed to our
intellectual and emotional life.
A man who as a lad had roamed the Roxbury hills with John Burroughs
and his brothers, and had known the boy John as something of a
dreamer, and thought of him in later years as perhaps of less account
than his brothers (since they had settled down, owned land, and were
leading industrious lives), was traveling in Europe in the eighties.
Pages:
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85