These rather commonplace verses, the first showing his love for
comrades, the others his philosophical bent, were the forerunners
of that poem of Mr. Burroughs's--"Waiting"--which has become a
household treasure, often without the ones who cherish it knowing
its source. "Waiting" was Written in the fall of 1862. In response
to my inquiry as to its genesis, its author said:--
I was reading medicine in the office of a country doctor at the
time and was in a rather gloomy and discouraged state of mind. My
outlook upon life was anything but encouraging. I was poor. I had
no certain means of livelihood. I had married five years before,
and, at a venture, I had turned to medicine as a likely solution
of my life's problems. The Civil War was raging and that, too,
disturbed me. It sounded a call of duty which increased my
perturbations; yet something must have said to me, "Courage!
all will yet be well. You are bound to have your own, whatever
happens." Doubtless this feeling had been nurtured in me by the
brave words of Emerson. At any rate, there in a little dingy back
room of Dr. Hull's office, I paused in my study of anatomy and wrote
"Waiting." I had at that time had some literary correspondence with
David A. Wasson whose essays in the "Atlantic" I had read with
deep interest.
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