Other editions of book Whitman: A Study

This is John Burroughs' 1896 biographical treatise of Walt Whitman, "Whitman: A Study". It constitutes a profound and comprehensive insight into the mind and work of one of America's greatest poets by another of America's great men of letters. This fantastic book is highly recommended for all lovers of literature, and it is not to be missed by fans of Burroughs' work. John Burroughs (1837 - 1921) was an American naturalist, essayist, and active member of the U.S. conservation movement. Burroughs' work was incredibly popular during his lifetime, and his legacy has lived on in the form of twelve U.S. Schools named after him, Burroughs Mountain, and the John Burroughs Association-which publicly recognizes well-written and illustrated natural history publications. Contents include: "Whitman", "Preliminary", "Biographical And Personal", "His Ruling Ideas And Aims", "His Self-reliance", "His Relation To Life And Morals", "His Relation To Culture", "His Relation To His Country And His Times", "His Relation To Science", "His Relation To Religion", and "A Final Word". Many vintage books such as this are becoming increasingly scarce and expensive. We are republishing this volume now in an affordable, modern, high-quality edition complete with a specially commissioned new biography of the author.

The writing of this preliminary chapter, and the final survey and revision of my Whitman essay, I am making at a rustic house I have built at a wild place a mile or more from my home upon the river. I call this place Whitman Land, because in many ways it is typical of my poet,—an amphitheatre of precipitous rock, slightly veiled with a delicate growth of verdure, enclosing a few acres of prairie-like land, once the site of an ancient lake, now a garden of unknown depth and fertility. Elemental ruggedness, savageness, and grandeur, combined with wonderful tenderness, modernness, and geniality. There rise the gray scarred cliffs, crowned here and there with a dead hemlock or pine, where, morning after morning, I have seen the bald-eagle perch, and here at their feet this level area of tender humus, with three perennial springs of delicious cold water flowing in its margin; a huge granite bowl filled with the elements and potencies of life. The scene has a strange fascination for me, and holds me here day after day. From the highest point of rocks I can overlook a long stretch of the river and of the farming country beyond; I can hear owls hoot, hawks scream, and roosters crow. Birds of the garden and orchard meet birds of the forest upon the shaggy cedar posts that uphold my porch. At dusk the call of the whippoorwill mingles with the chorus of the pickerel frogs, and in the morning I hear through the robins' cheerful burst the sombre plaint of the mourning-dove. When I tire of my manuscript, I walk in the woods, or climb the rocks, or help the men clear up the ground, piling and burning the stumps and rubbish. This scene and situation, so primitive and secluded, yet so touched with and adapted to civilization, responding to the moods of both sides of the life and imagination of a modern man, seems, I repeat, typical in many ways of my poet, and is a veritable Whitman land. Whitman does not to me suggest the wild and unkempt as he seems to do to many; he suggests the cosmic and the elemental, and this is one of the dominant thoughts that run through my dissertation. Scenes of power and savagery in nature were more welcome to him, probably more stimulating to him, than the scenes of the pretty and placid, and he cherished the hope that he had put into his "Leaves" some of the tonic and fortifying quality of Nature in her more grand and primitive aspects. His wildness is only the wildness of the great primary forces from which we draw our health and strength. Underneath all his unloosedness, or free launching forth of himself, is the sanity and repose of nature.

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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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Whitman: A Study By John BurroughsTHE writing of this preliminary chapter, and the final survey and revision of my Whitman essay, I am making at a rustic house I have built at a wild place a mile or more from my home upon the river. I call this place Whitman Land, because in many ways it is typical of my poet, an amphitheatre of precipitous rock, slightly veiled with a delicate growth of verdure, enclosing a few acres of prairie-like land, once the site of an ancient lake, now a garden of unknown depth and fertility. Elemental ruggedness, savageness, and grandeur, combined with wonderful tenderness, modernness, and geniality. There rise the gray scarred cliffs, crowned here and there with a dead hemlock or pine, where, morning after morning, I have seen the bald-eagle perch, and here at their feet this level area of tender humus, with three perennial springs of delicious cold water flowing in its margin; a huge granite bowl filled with the elements and potencies of life. The scene has a strange fascination for me, and holds me here day after day. From the highest point of rocks I can overlook a long stretch of the river and of the farming country beyond; I can hear owls hoot, hawks scream, and roosters crow. Birds of the garden and orchard meet birds of the forest upon the shaggy cedar posts that uphold my porch. At dusk the call of the whippoorwill mingles with the chorus of the pickerel frogs, and in the morning I hear through the robins' cheerful burst the sombre plaint of the mourningdove. When I tire of my manuscript, I walk in the woods, or climb the rocks, or help the men clear up the ground, piling and burning the stumps and rubbish. This scene and situation, so primitive and secluded, yet so touched with and adapted to civilization, responding to the moods of both sides of the life and imagination of a modern man, seems, I repeat, typical in many ways of my poet, and is a veritable Whitman land. Whitman does not to me suggest the wild and unkempt as he seems to do to many; he suggests the cosmic and the elemental, and this is one of the dominant thoughts that run through my dissertation. Scenes of power and savagery in nature were more welcome to him, probably more stimulating to him, than the scenes of the pretty and placid, and he cherished the hope that he had put into his "Leaves" some of the tonic and fortifying quality of Nature in her more grand and primitive aspects. His wildness is only the wildness of the great primary forces from which we draw our health and strength. Underneath all his unloosedness, or free launching forth of himself, is the sanity and repose of nature. II I first became acquainted with Whitman's poetry through the columns of the old "Saturday Press" when I was twenty or twenty-one years old ( or ). The first things I remember to have read were "There was a child went forth," "This Compost," "As I ebb'd with the Ocean of Life," "Old Ireland," and maybe a few others. I was attracted by the new poet's work from the first. It seemed to let me into a larger, freer air than I found in the current poetry. Meeting Bayard Taylor about this time, I spoke to him about Whitman. "Yes," he said, "there is something in him, but he is a man of colossal egotism."