A GREAT NATURE LOVER.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLII, Issue 2207, 25 November 1920, Page 4

A GREAT NATURE LOVER.

———— —— JOHN BURROUGHS. (By Maurice Hurst in the “Herald.") Hero is an American whoso claim to Came rests neither upon business, .money nor polities. but upon Ins deep love of! Nature and the poetiy and power with which he has' rerouted his observations and ideas. Now over eighty years of ago, John Burroughs stands in the- foretront of living naturalists; a tall, sturdy, whitcbearded man, a simple-hearted lover of birds and the open air, a writer and philosopher of rare distinction. Having- spent his life upon a farm - he hates the noise and dust ol cities .—Burroughs lias heeded the poet’s injunction to "let Nature lie your teacher," and his wisdom has been garnered while patiently watching-the plants "In the mild winter days, when I am writing in my cabin study, I can hear the. sharp ‘click, click, of Hud’s shears as he trims the vines. If I could only trim my vines as heroically as Hud trims his! getting- rid of all the old wood possible and leaving only a few young and vigorous shoots. The great art of grape-growing- is severe trimming and high culture, and I suspect the art of literature is about the same. In the vineyard it is not foliage and wood that we are after, but grapes, and in literature verbiage and superfluities are to lie kept down for the same reason—we want fruit. It is a, gospel of simplicity and quietude that John Burroughs preaches—an old gospel that finds fresh teachers and hearers with each new generation. It lias-brought him peace and content,

health, honour, and long life, and what ho lias written is simply praise of the manner of living that best harmonises with his personality. In the end all literature is biography. Burroughs has said; “I am hound to praise the simple life, because I have lived it and found it good. When I depart from it, evil results follow. I love a small house, plain clothes, simple living. Many persons know the luxury of a skin bath —a plunge in the pool or the wave unhampered by clothing. That is the simple life—direct and immediate contact with things, life with false wrappings torn away l —the fine house, the fine equippage, the expensive habits, all cut off. How free 'one feels, bow good the elements taste, how close one gets to them, how they fit one’s body and one’s soul.” NATURE’S TEACHINGS.

As a philosopher of Nature, John Burroughs takes a high place, and his best and most enduring prose comes within this category. His' works make abstruse subjects clear and intersting; he sees the universe as objectively as if it were a sphere within bis hands; he reads mysterious natural processes as plainly as the clouds in (lie morning or evening sky. A short passage will suggest his breadth of vision and power of expression: "To have a bit of earth to plant, to hoe, to delve in, is a rare privilege. If one stops to consider, one cannot turn it with his spade without emotion. We look back with the mind’s eye through the vista of geologic time, and wc see islands and continents of barren, jagged rocks, not a grain of soil anywhere. Wo look again, and behold a world of rounded lulls and fertile valleys and plains, depth of soil where before wore frowning rocks. The hand of time, with its potent fingers of heat, frost, cloud, and air, has passed slowly over the scene, and the miracle is done. The rocks turn to herbage; the fetid grasses to the breath of flowers. The mountain melts down to a harvest field; volcanic scoria, .into garden mould; whore towered a cliff now basks a green slope; where the strata yawned, now hubbies a fountain; where the earth trembled, verdure now undulates. Your lawn and your meadow are built up of the ruins of the foreworld. The leanness of granite and gneiss has become the fat of the land. What transformation and promotion!—the decreptitudc of the hills becoming the strength of the plains, the decay of the heights resulting in the renewal of the valleys,”

In another place Burroughs exclaims: "This great rolling sphere with Its sky, its stars, its surprises and sunsets, and with its outlook into infinity—what could bo more desirable? What, more satisfying? Garlandcd'by the seasons, embosomed in sidereal influences, thrilling with life, with a heart of fire and a garment of a sure seas, and fruitful continents- —one might ransack the heavens in vain lor a isetter or more picturesque abode.” Although his mind travels so tranquilly among- the deep and the starry spaces, ho dwells upon the common earth; and he has told of the thrills ol simple pleasures—walking, the campfire, loafing in the sunshine —as well as anyone. He speaks of the fascination of a fire in tho open—the lingering about it, poking up the slicks, throwing iu tho burnt ends, adding one branch and then another, and looking back as one turns to go to catch one more glimpse of the smoke going up through the trees.