Part 14

When a man has received many honorary degrees which the great universities have felt proud to confer, it is an indication that those most competent to judge have appreciated his intellectual attainments or public services, or both. When the people of his native village bestow upon him the title of "Uncle," it is an indication that the achievement of fame has not eclipsed the lovable qualities in his character nor dimmed the affectionate regard of the neighbors who have learned to know him as a man. There is a certain friendliness implied in the title of "Uncle," while it also suggests respect. If you live in a small town you call everybody by his first name. But one of your number becomes famous. To call him "John" seems too familiar. It implies that you do not properly appreciate his attainments. To call him "Mister" or "Doctor" seems to make a stranger of him, and you would not for the world admit that he is not still your friend. "Uncle" is often a happy compromise, particularly if he still retains the neighborly qualities of his less distinguished years.

I do not know that the people of Roxbury ever followed this line of reasoning, but it does seem quite appropriate that they should call their most distinguished fellow citizen "Uncle John." He was born on a farm near this little village in the Catskills on the 3d of April, 1837, in the very time of the return of the birds. Perhaps this is why he is so fond of them and particularly of Robin Redbreast, that fine old-fashioned democrat, who is one of his prime favorites. He spent his boyhood here, and now, in the fullness of his years, quietly returns each summer to the old familiar haunts, living the same simple life as of yore, except that the pen is now his tool instead of the farming implements.

The little red schoolhouse, where Burroughs and Jay Gould went to school together, may still be seen in the valley, standing in the open country with one of those rounded hilltops in the background which form the characteristic feature of the Catskills. Near by is the Gould birthplace, now a comfortable-looking farmhouse, glistening with a fresh coat of white paint. "Take away the porch and the back extension, and the top story and the paint," said my driver, "and you will have the original 'birthplace.'" He said that when he first began the livery business in Roxbury many people came to see the birthplace of Jay Gould, but no one mentioned Burroughs. Now it is just the other way, and the number of visitors increases yearly, all anxious to see the home of the famous philosopher. Yet these two men, one of whom seems to have belonged to the generations of the past while the other is a part of the ever-living present, were boys together in the same schoolhouse more than sixty years ago.

As my conveyance drew up to the door, Mr. Burroughs came out with a hearty welcome. He was alone, for during the summer, when he retires to this place for work, he prefers to do his own housekeeping in his own way. "I am a good cook," said he, "but a poor housekeeper." I did not agree with the latter part of the statement, for as I looked around I thought he had about all he needed and everything was clean. Moreover, things were where he could get at them, and from a man's point of view what better housekeeping could anybody want?

The house which he now occupies is a plain-looking farmhouse, built in 1869 by Mr. Burroughs's elder brother. Its most distinctive feature is the rustic porch, a recent addition, which serves the purposes of living-room, library, and bedroom. Mr. Burroughs is a believer in fresh air and during the summer likes to sleep out of doors. He has a rustic table, covered with favorite books. When he is not at work, he likes to sit on the porch and enjoy what he calls "the peace of the hills." Across the road there is a field, broad and long and crossed by numerous stone walls. In the distance are the hills of his well-loved Catskills, their smoothly undulating lines giving a sense of repose. At the right of the house I noticed a small patch of green corn, in front of which were some rambling cucumber vines. In the rear and at the left were a few old apple trees, and farther back, capping the summit of a ridge, a fine grove of trees, standing in orderly array, like an army ready for action. Mr. Burroughs has named the place, in characteristic fashion, "Woodchuck Lodge," "because," he said, "I can sit here and count the woodchucks, sometimes eight or ten at a time."

Not wishing to interfere with his plans, I expressed the hope that I was not interrupting him, when he quickly replied, "O, my work for to-day is all done. I rise at six and usually do all my writing before noon." "You are like Sir Walter Scott, then," said I, "who always began early and, as he said, 'broke the neck of the day's work' before the family came down to breakfast and was 'his own man before noon.'" "Ah, he was a wonderful man," replied Mr. Burroughs. Then, after a pause and with a little sigh--"I wish I could invest these hills with romance as he did the hills of Scotland." "But you _have_ invested them with romance," I said, "although of a different kind." "Yes," he replied, with brightening eyes, "with the romance of humanity and of nature, the only kind to which they are entitled."

I could not help thinking how wonderfully like Wordsworth this seemed. The romance of humanity and nature! Is it not this, which, since Wordsworth's time, has given a new charm to the hills and valleys of Westmoreland and Cumberland, causing every visitor to seek the dwelling-places of the poet? And are not those who spend their summers in the Catskills finding a new delight in those beautiful mountains because of the spell which John Burroughs has thrown upon them?

Wordsworth wrote the history of his own mind and called it "The Prelude," intending it to be but the introduction to a greater poem to be entitled "The Recluse," which should be a broad presentation of his views on Man, Nature, and Society. "The Excursion" was to be the second part, but the third was never written. He conceived that this great work would be like a Gothic church, the main body of which would be represented by "The Recluse," while "The Prelude" would be but the ante-chapel. All his other poems, when properly arranged, would then be "likened to the little cells, oratories, and sepulchral recesses, ordinarily included in those edifices."

Burroughs is far too modest to compare his writings to a cathedral, but he has nevertheless, like Wordsworth, written himself into nearly all of them. Following the English poet's simile in a modified form, we may think of the product of his pen, not as a cathedral, but as a mansion of many rooms, each furnished with beautiful simplicity and charming taste to represent some different phase of the author's mind, and each equipped, so to speak, with a mirror, possessing all the magic but without the unpleasant duty of the one in Hawthorne's tale, so arranged as to reflect the very soul of its builder with perfect fidelity.

So sincere is Burroughs that you feel certain he is constantly revealing his true self. Therefore, when he praises Wordsworth as the English poet who has touched him more closely than any other, you begin to realize the bond of sympathy. When he says that Wordsworth's poetry has the character of "a message, special and personal to a comparatively small circle of readers," you know that he is one of the few who have taken the message to heart.

Wordsworth's love of Nature was of the same kind as the American poet's. "Nature," says Burroughs, "is not to be praised or patronized. You cannot go to her and describe her; she must speak through your heart. The woods and fields must melt into your mind, dissolved by your love for them. Did they not melt into Wordsworth's mind? They colored all his thoughts; the solitude of those green, rocky Westmoreland fells broods over every page. He does not tell us how beautiful he finds Nature, and how much he enjoys her; he makes us share his enjoyment." Substitute Burroughs for Wordsworth, and Catskill for Westmoreland, and you have in this passage a fine statement of the reason why John Burroughs is winning the gratitude of more and more people every year.

Wordsworth thought of Nature as an all-pervading Presence, something mysterious and sublime, a supreme Being,--

"The anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse, The guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul Of all my moral being."

Burroughs does not rise to such ethereal heights, but recognizes that the passion for Nature is "a form of, or closely related to, our religious instincts." He lives closer to Nature than Wordsworth ever did. His knowledge of her secrets is far deeper and more intimate. He is a naturalist and scientist, as well as a man of poetic temperament. He has a trained eye that sees what others would miss. "There is a great deal of byplay going on in the life of Nature about us," he says, "a great deal of variation and outcropping of individual traits, that we entirely miss unless we have our eyes and ears open."

Probably no other man has a keener ear for the music of the birds. He possesses that "special gift of grace," to use his own expression, that enables one to hear the bird-songs. Not only can he distinguish the various species by their songs, but he instantly recognizes a new note. He once detected a robin, singing with great spirit and accuracy the song of the brown thrasher, and on another occasion followed a thrush for a long time because he recognized three or four notes of a popular air which the bird had probably learned from some whistling shepherd boy. He loves to put words into the mouths of the birds to fit their songs and to fancy conversations between husband and wife upon their nest. The sensitiveness of his ear for bird-music is wonderfully illustrated in his story of a new song which he heard on Slide Mountain in the Catskills. "The moment I heard it, I said, 'There is a new bird, a new thrush,' for the quality of all the thrush songs is the same. A moment more and I knew it was Bicknell's thrush. The song is in a minor key, finer, more attenuated, and more under the breath than that of any other thrush. It seemed as if the bird was blowing into a delicate, slender, golden tube, so fine and yet so flute-like and resonant the song appeared. At times it was like a musical whisper of great sweetness and power." I do not believe that Wordsworth or any other poet, however passionate his love of Nature, ever heard such a bird-song or could describe its qualities with so keen a discernment.

Mr. Burroughs made me think of Wordsworth again when, as we sat looking over toward the Catskills, he explained his residence at Woodchuck Lodge by referring to his enjoyment of the open country and the peace and quiet of the scene. For, says Wordsworth,--

"What want we? Have we not perpetual streams, Warm woods, and sunny hills, and fresh green fields And mountains not less green, and flocks and herds And thickets full of songsters, and the voice Of lordly birds, an unexpected sound Heard now and then from morn to latest eve, Admonishing the man who walks below Of solitude and silence in the sky?"

After an hour of pleasant conversation my host arose, saying he would build his fire and we would have our dinner. In due course we sat down to a repast that would have gladdened the heart of General Grant himself. The old veteran, as many will remember, after his return from a tour of triumph around the world, in which he had been banqueted by kings and emperors, dukes, millionaires, and public societies, once slipped into a farmer's kitchen for a dinner of corned beef and cabbage, declaring that he was glad to get something good to eat. Our meal did not consist of corned beef and cabbage, but of corn cakes, made of fresh green corn plucked not a couple of yards from the kitchen door and baked on a griddle by one of the foremost literary men of America. There were other good things, plenty of them, but those delicious cakes with maple syrup of the genuine kind exactly "touched the spot," as old-fashioned folks used to say. Mine host must have noticed the unusual demands upon his crop of corn and marveled to see the rapid disappearance of the cakes, but he did not seem displeased. On the contrary, as he brought in, time after time, a fresh pile of the steaming flapjacks, his face beamed with the smile that betokens genuine hospitality. Our conversation at table was mostly on politics, in which Mr. Burroughs takes keen interest and upon which he is a man of decided convictions; but this is a subject which he must be allowed to elucidate in his own way.

After dinner, Mr. Burroughs laughingly remarked that his study was the barn, and we walked up the road to visit it. "I cannot bear to be cramped by the four walls of a room," said he, "so I have moved out to the barn. I enjoy it greatly. The birds and the small animals come to see me every day and often sit and talk with me. The woodchucks and chipmunks, the blue jays and the hawks, all look in at me while I am at work. A red squirrel often squats on the stone wall and scolds me, and the other day an old gray rabbit came. He sat there twisting his nose like this" (here Mr. Burroughs twisted his own nose in comical fashion), "and seemed to be saying saying--

'By the pricking of my thumbs Something wicked this way comes.'"

Arrived at the barn, Mr. Burroughs seated himself at his "desk." With twinkling eyes he explained that it was an old hen-coop. The inside was stuffed with hay to keep his feet warm, and if the weather happens to be chilly, he wears a blanket over his shoulders. A market-basket contains his manuscript and a few books complete the equipment. The desk is just inside the wide-open doors of the barn, and he sits with his face to the light. "There is a broad outlook from a barn door," said he, smilingly.

Beyond the low stone wall, where his animal friends seat themselves for the daily conversations, is an apple orchard, and in the distance are the rounded summits of the Catskills--a view as peaceful and refreshing as the one from the house. Here Mr. Burroughs is never lonely. One day a junco, or slate-colored snowbird, came on a tour of inspection. She decided to build her nest in the hay. She scorned all the materials so close at hand and brought everything from outside. Her instinct had taught her to find certain materials for a nest, and she could not suddenly learn to make use of the convenient hay. Mr. Burroughs, in speaking of this, told me of a phoebe who built her nest over the window of his house. She brought moss to conceal it, but as the moss did not match the color of the house, she succeeded only in making her nest more conspicuous. Since the evolution of the species, phoebes have built their nests on the sides of cliffs, using moss of the color of the rocks to conceal them. The little bird who, like the junco, followed her instincts, failed to note the difference between the house and the rocks.

In conversation of this kind, Mr. Burroughs turned the hours into minutes, and I was surprised to look up and see the team approaching which was to carry me away. After a reluctant farewell, we drove over the brow of a hill and stopped for a few moments before the farmhouse which was the birthplace of John Burroughs. A comical incident took place. It was raining hard when we arrived and we drove into the barn, directly across the road from the house. An old dog and a young one were here, keeping themselves dry from the shower. I set up my camera in the barn, to take a picture of the house. As I did so, I noticed the old dog walk deliberately out in the rain and perch himself upon the doorstep, where he turned around once or twice as if trying to strike the right attitude. This point determined, he stood perfectly still until I had taken the picture, and when I started to put away the camera, came trotting back to the barn. I do not know what instinct, if any, prompted the dog to wish his picture to be taken, but he was no more foolish than many people,--men, women, and children,--who have insisted upon getting into my pictures, though they knew there was no possibility of their ever seeing them.

Mr. Burrough's permanent home is at West Park, on the Hudson River, a few miles south of Kingston. Here he has a farm mostly devoted to the cultivation of grapes. He occupies a comfortable stone house, pleasantly situated and nearly surrounded by trees of various kinds. Back of the house and near the river is the study or den, a little rustic building on the slope of the hill, where Mr. Burroughs can write undisturbed by the business of the farm. The walls are partly lined with bookshelves, well crowded with favorite volumes. Near by is a small rustic summer house from which a delightful view of the river may be seen for miles to the north and to the south. This is why the place is called "Riverby"--simply "by-the-river." It has been the author's home for many years.

Even the study, however, did not satisfy Mr. Burroughs's longing for quiet, and so he built another retreat about a mile and a half west of the village which he calls "Slabsides." It is reached by walking up a hill and passing through a bit of hemlock woods which I found quite charming. Slabsides is a rustic house like many camps in the Adirondacks. It is roughly built, but sufficiently comfortable, and has a pleasant little porch, at the entrance to which a climbing vine gives a picturesque effect which is greatly enhanced by a stone chimney, now almost completely clothed with foliage. It is in an out-of-the-way hollow of the woods where nobody would be likely to come except for the express purpose of visiting Mr. Burroughs. For several summers this was his favorite retreat. He would walk over from his home at Riverby and stay perhaps two or three weeks at a time, doing his own cooking and housekeeping. Of late years, however, Slabsides has been less frequently used, Woodchuck Lodge having received the preference.

All of these abodes, whether you see them within or without, reveal the secret of John Burroughs's strength. They coincide with his personal appearance, his dress, his conversation, his manner. It is the strength of absolute simplicity. Everything is sincere. Nothing is superfluous. There is no such thing as "putting on airs." Fame and popularity have not spoiled him. He is genuine. You feel it when you see his workshops. You know it when you meet the man.

Mr. Charles Wagner, the apostle of "the simple life," has said, "All the strength of the world and all true joy, everything that consoles, that feeds hope, or throws a ray of light along our dark paths, everything that makes us see across our poor lives a splendid goal and a boundless future, comes to us from people of simplicity, those who have made another object of their desires than the passing satisfaction and vanity, and have understood that the art of living is to know how to give one's life."

John Burroughs is one of these "people of simplicity," and his contribution to our happiness lies in his rare power of bringing to his reader something of his own enjoyment of Nature--an enjoyment which he has been able to obtain only through the living of a simple life. He is the complete embodiment of Emerson's "forest seer":--

"Many haps fall in the field Seldom seen by wishful eyes; But all her shows did Nature yield, To please and win this pilgrim wise. He saw the partridge drum in the woods; He heard the woodcock's evening hymn; He found the tawny thrushes' broods; And the shy hawk did wait for him; What others did at distance hear, And guessed within the thicket's gloom, Was shown to this philosopher And at his bidding seemed to come."

IX

GLIMPSES OF THE YELLOWSTONE

IX

GLIMPSES OF THE YELLOWSTONE

The Yellowstone National Park is Nature's jewel casket, in which she has kept her choicest gems for countless generations. Securely sheltered by ranges of rugged mountains they have long been safe from human depredations. The red man doubtless knew of them, but superstition came to the aid of Nature and held him awe-struck at a safe distance. The first white man who came within sight of these wonders a century ago could find no one to believe his tales, and for a generation or two the region of hot springs and boiling geysers which he described was sneeringly termed "Colter's Hell." Only within the last half-century have the generality of mankind been permitted to view these precious jewels, and even then jealous Nature, it would seem, did not consent to reveal her treasures until fully assured that they would have the protection of no less powerful a guardianship than that of the National Government.

On the 18th of September, 1870, a party of explorers, headed by General Henry D. Washburn, then Surveyor-General of Montana, emerged from the forest into an open plain and suddenly found themselves not one hundred yards away from a huge column of boiling water, from which great rolling clouds of snow-white vapor rose high into the air against the blue sky. It was "Old Faithful" in action. Then and there they resolved that this whole region of wonders should be made into a public park for the benefit of all the people, and renouncing any thought of securing the lands for personal gain, these broad-minded men used their influence to have the National Congress assume the permanent guardianship of the place. And now that protection is fully assured these jewels of Nature may be seen by you and me.

Those who have traveled much will tell you that Nature is prodigal of her riches, and, indeed, this would seem to be true to one who has spent a summer among the snow-clad peaks of the Alps, or dreamed away the days amid the blue lakes of northern Italy, or wandered about in the green forests of the Adirondacks, where every towering spruce, every fragrant balsam, every dainty wild flower and every mossy log is a thing of beauty. But these are Nature's full-dress garments, just as the broad-spreading wheatfields of the Dakotas are her work-a-day clothes. Her "jewels" are safely locked up in places more difficult of access, where they may be seen by only a favored few; and one of these safe-deposit boxes, so to speak, is the Yellowstone National Park.

The first collection of these natural gems is at Mammoth Hot Springs, and here my camera, as if by instinct, led me quickly to the daintiest in form and most delicate in colorings of them all, a beautiful formation known as Hymen Terrace. A series of steps, covering a circular area of perhaps one hundred feet in diameter, has been formed by the overflow of a hot spring. The terraces consist of a series of semicircular and irregular curves or scallops, like a combination of hundreds of richly carved pulpits, wrought in a soft, white substance resembling coral. Little pools of glistening water reflect the sunlight from the tops of the steps, while a gently flowing stream spreads imperceptibly over about one half the surface, sprinkling it with millions of diamonds as the altar of Hymen ought to be. The pools are greens and blues of many shades, varying with the depth of the water. The sides of the steps are pure white in the places where the water has ceased to flow, but beneath the thin stream they range in color from a rich cream to a deep brown, with all the intermediate shades harmoniously blended. From the highest pools, and especially from the largest one at the very summit of the mound, rise filmy veils of steam, softening the exquisite tints into a rich harmony of color against the azure of the sky.