What
was mine, what I saw with love and emotion, has always fused with
my mind, so that in the heat of writing it came back to me
spontaneously. What I have lived, I never lose.
My trip to Alaska came near being spoiled because I was expected
to write it up, and actually did so from day to day, before fusion
and absorption had really taken place. Hence my readers complain
that they do not find me in that narrative, do not find my stamp
or quality as in my other writings. And well they may say it.
I am conscious that I am not there as in the others; the fruit
was plucked before it had ripened; or, to use my favorite analogy,
the bee did not carry the nectar long enough to transform it into
honey. Had I experienced a more free and disinterested intercourse
with Alaskan nature, with all the pores of my mind open, the result
would certainly have been different. I might then, after the
experience had lain and ripened in my mind for a year or two, and
become my own, have got myself into it.
When I went to the Yellowstone National Park with President
Roosevelt, I waited over three years before writing up the trip.
I recall the President's asking me at the time if I took notes.
I said, "No; everything that interests me will stick to me like
a burr.
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