"
I fancy there are many of his readers who will echo what one of
his friends has said to him: "For me the 3d of April will ever
stand apart in the calendar with a poignant beauty and sweetness
because it is your birthday. It is the keynote to which the whole
springtime music is set." Or another: "If April 3d comes in like
any other day, please understand that it will be because she does
not dare to show how glad she is over her own doings." On another
birthday, the same correspondent says: "I find that you are so
inwoven with the spring-time that I shall never again be able to
resolve the season into its elements. But I am the richer for it.
I feel a sort of compassion for one who has never seen the spring
through your eyes."
Mr. Burroughs puts his reader into close and sympathetic communion
with the open-air world as no other literary naturalist has done.
Gilbert White reported with painstaking fidelity the natural
history of Selborne; Thoreau gave Thoreau with glimpses of nature
thrown in; Richard Jefferies, in dreamy, introspective descriptions
of rare beauty and delicacy, portrayed his own mystical impressions
of nature; but Mr. Burroughs takes us with him to the homes and
haunts of the wild creatures, sets us down in their midst, and lets
us see and hear and feel just what is going on.
Pages:
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263