Books with author John BURROUGHS

From the author's introduction in 1901: "In compiling this anthology of Nature poetry I have been guided entirely by my own taste in such matters; I have here gathered together such poems as I myself prefer amid the material at my disposal"... "This collection represents on the whole my judgment of the best Nature poems at my disposal in the language. I am surprised at the amount of so-called Nature poetry that has been added to the English literature during the past fifty years, but I find only a little of it of permanent worth. The painted, padded, and perfumed Nature of so many of the younger poets I cannot stand at all. I have not knowingly admitted any poem that was not true to my own observations of Nature -or that diverged at all from the facts of the case. Thus, a poem that shows the swallow perched upon the barn in October I could not accept, because the swallow leaves us in August; or a poem that makes the chestnut bloom with the lilac -an instance I came across in my reading -would be ruled out on like grounds; or when I find poppies blooming in the corn in an American poem, as I several times have done, I pass by on the other side."

An American resident in England is reported as saying that the English have an atmosphere but no climate. The reverse of this remark would apply pretty accurately to our own case. We certainly have a climate, a two-edged one that cuts both ways, threatening us with sun-stroke on the one hand and with frost-stroke on the other; but we have no atmosphere to speak of in New York and New England, except now and then during the dog-days, or the fitful and uncertain Indian Summer. An atmosphere, the quality of tone and mellowness in the near distance, is the product of a more humid climate. Hence, as we go south from New York,the atmospheric effects become more rich and varied, until on reaching the Potomac you find an atmosphere as well as a climate. The latter is still on the vehement American scale, full of sharp and violent changes and contrasts, baking and blistering in summer, and nipping and blighting in winter, but the spaces are not so purged and bare; the horizon wall does not so often have the appearance of having just been washed and scrubbed down. There is more depth and visibility to the open air, a stronger infusion of the Indian Summer element throughout the year, than is found farther north. The days are softer and more brooding, and the nights more enchanting. It is here that Walt Whitman saw the full moon "Pour down Night's nimbus floods," as any one may see her, during the full, from October to May. There is more haze and vapor in the atmosphere during that period, and every pariticle seems to collect and hold the pure radiance until the world swims with the lunar outpouring. Is not the full moon always on the side of fair weather? I think it is Sir William Herschel who says her influence tends to dispel the clouds. Certain it is her beauty is seldom lost or even veiled in this southern or semi-southern clime.

You ask me to give you some account of my life—how it was with me, and now in my seventy-sixth year I find myself in the mood to do so. You know enough about me to know that it will not be an exciting narrative or of any great historical value. It is mainly the life of a country man and a rather obscure man of letters, lived in eventful times indeed, but largely lived apart from the men and events that have given character to the last three quarters of a century. Like tens of thousands of others, I have been a spectator of, rather than a participator in, the activities—political, commercial, sociological, scientific—of the times in which I have lived. My life, like your own, has been along the by-paths rather than along the great public highways. I have known but few great men and have played no part in any great public events—not even in the Civil War which I lived through and in which my duty plainly called me to take part. I am a man who recoils from noise and strife, even from fair competition, and who likes to see his days "linked each to each" by some quiet, congenial occupation.

The Book of Woodcraft, originally published in 1921, is an illustrated classic work on the skills that made Boy Scouts reach deep into the hearts of America's youth. It's all here in 15 sections: Principles of Woodcraft, The Spartans of the West, (a book on Native Americans), Woodland Songs, Dances and Ceremonies, Suggested Programs, General Scouting Indoors, General Scouting Outdoors, Signaling and Indian Signs, Camper-craft or the Summer Camp, Games for the Camp, Health and Woodland Medicine, Natural History, Mushrooms Fungi or Toadstools, Forestry, Some Indian Ways, and Campfire Stories or Glimpses of Indian Character. About the Author Ernest Seton-Thompson (1860-1946) was a naturalist and writer who was an early practitioner of the modern school of animal-fiction writing. Deeply concerned with the future of the prairie, Seton fought vigorously to establish reservations for Indians and parks for animals threatened by extinction. In order to provide children with the opportunities for nature study, he founded the Woodcraft Indians in 1902 and later was chairman of the committee that established the Boy Scouts of America. He is the author of dozens of books and pamphlets celebrating the American wilderness, and had any number of strong opinions. For one thing, he believed that a civilization whose members were physically weak was doomed to collapse. For another thing, he exalted American Indians as people who shunned avarice, "sought for the beautiful in everything," and lived in harmony with nature. And for another thing, he believed that to try at something and to fail at it was infinitely better than not! trying at all - and that no one was quite so distasteful as a quitter. Seton was raised in North America, his family having immigrated to Canada in 1866. Drawn to nature, Seton resisted his family's attempt to make an artist of him. He gained experience as a naturalist by trailing and hunting in the prairie country of Manitoba in the final years of the 19th century. He used this knowledge as the basis for his animal stories. His artistic training enabled him to earn a living for a time as an illustrator of wild animals. He continued to write such books into the 1940s.

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