Out of Saint-Pierre's
"Studies of Nature," a work I had never before heard of, I got
something, though it would be hard for me to say just what. The
work is a curious blending of such science as there was in his
time, with sentiment and fancy, and enlivened by a bright French
mind. I still look through it with interest, and find that it has
a certain power of suggestion for me yet.
He confessed that he was somewhat imposed upon by Dr. Johnson's
high-sounding platitudes. "A beginner," he said, "is very apt to
feel that if he is going to write, the thing to do is to write,
and get as far from the easy conversational manner as possible.
Let your utterances be measured and stately." At first he tried
to imitate Johnson, but soon gave that up. He was less drawn to
Addison and Lamb at the time, because they were less formal, and
seemingly less profound; and was slow in perceiving that the art
of good writing is the art of bringing one's mind and soul face
to face with that of the reader. How different that early attitude
from the penetrating criticism running through his "Literary
Values"; how different his stilted beginnings from his own limpid
prose as we know it, to read which is to forget that one is reading!
Mr. Burroughs's very first appearance in print was in a paper in
Delaware County, New York,--the Bloomfield "Mirror,"--on May 18,
1856.
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