Part 9 (1/2)

The only significant thing about hteen and twenty-three, is their serious trend of thought; but the character ofwas serious and philosophical

Locke and Johnson and Saint-Pierre and the others no doubt left their rindstone of Locke's philosophy, and no doubt hter and sharper by the process Out of Saint-Pierre's ”Studies of Nature,” a work I had never before heard of, I got soh it would be hard forof such science as there was in his tiht French h it with interest, and find that it has a certain power of suggestion for me yet

He confessed that he was so platitudes ”A beginner,” he said, ”is very apt to feel that if he is going to write, the thing to do is to write, and get as far from the easy conversational manner as possible Let your utterances be measured and stately” At first he tried to iave that up He was less drawn to Addison and Laly less profound; and was slow in perceiving that the art of good writing is the art of bringing one's mind and soul face to face with that of the reader How different that early attitude froh his ”Literary Values”; how different his stilted beginnings froet that one is reading!

Mr Burroughs's very first appearance in print was in a paper in Delaware County, New York,--the Blooaries vs Spiritualism”--purports to be written by ”Philomath,” of Roxbury, New York, who is none other than John Burroughs, at the age of nineteen It starts out showing i credulity of the superstitious mind, and continues in athe controversial spirit which Mr Burroughs displayedto task the natural-history romancers The production was evidently provoked by a too credulous writer on spiritualism in a previous issue of the ”Mirror” I will quote its first paragraph:--

Mr Mirror,--Notwithstanding the general diffusion of knowledge in the nineteenth century, it is a lanorance, or so blinded by superstition, as to rely with implicit confidence upon the validity of opinions which have no foundation in nature, or no support by the deductions of reason But truth and error have always been at variance, and the audacity of the contest has kept pace with the growing vigor of the contending parties

Sohtforward, conscientious persons, whose intentions are undoubtedly commendable, are so infatuated by the sophistical theories of the spiritualist, or so tossed about on the waves of public opinion, that they lose sight of truth and good sense, and, like the philosopher who looked higher than ise in his stargazing, tuan to contribute to the coluan of the literary boherouped under the absurd title ”Fragments from the Table of an Intellectual Epicure,” by ”All Souls” There were about sixty of these fragments I have examined most of them; some are fanciful and far-fetched; some are apt and felicitous; but all foreshadow the independent thinker and observer, and show that this ”Intellectual Epicure” was feeding on strongit

I assuhs only as the practiced writer of the past fifty years to see some of his first sallies into literature, to trace the unlikeness to his present style, and the resely I subjoin soes of the New York ”Saturday Press” of 1859 and 1860:--

A principle of absolute truth, pointed with fact and feathered with fancy, and shot fro of a s under the sun It sings like a bird of peace to those who are not the object of its aim, but oe to him who is the butt of such terrible archery!

For a thing to appear heavy to us, it is necessary that we have heft to balance against it; to appear strong, it is necessary that we have strength; to appear great, it is necessary that we have an idea of greatness We must have a standard to norant peasant cannot know that Bacon is so wise

To duly appreciate genius, you iant The faculty that reads and adreen undeveloped state of the faculty that writes and creates

A book, a principle, an individual, a landscape, or any object in nature, to be understood and appreciated,within us; appreciation is the first step toward interpreting a revelation

To feel terribly beaten is a good sign; the more resources a man is conscious of, the deeper he will feel his defeat But to feel unusually elated at a victory indicates that our strength did not warrant it, that we had gone beyond our resources The boy ent crowing all day through the streets, on having killed a squirrel with a stone, showed plainly enough that it was not a general average of his throwing, and that he was not in the habit of doing so well; while the rifleman picks the hawk from the distant tree without remark or comment, and feels vexed if he miss

The style of some authors, like the manners of some men, is so naked, so artificial, has so little character at the botto itself upon your notice, and seee marble counter from behind which they vend only pins and needles; whereas the true function of style is as a means and not as an end--to concentrate the attention upon the thought which it bears, and not upon itself--to be so apt, natural, and easy, and so in keeping with the character of the author, that, like the comb in the hive, it shall seem the result of that which it contains, and to exist for _its_ sake alone

It is interesting to note, in these and other extracts, how the young writer is constantly tracing the analogy between the facts of everyday life about hian to knit these fragether into essays, and to send the essays to the ”Saturday Press” under such titles as ”Deep,” and ”A Thought on Culture” There is a good deal of stating the sa in diverse ways The writer seeies which, for the most part, are felicitous; occasionally crudities and unnecessarily homely coraphs of ”Deep” give a fair sample of the essay:--

Deep authors? Yes, reader, I like deep authors, that is, authors of great penetration, reach, and coht; but I must not be bored with a sense of depth--must not be required to strain my mental vision to see into the bottoh it colobe Then I can fill my cup without any artificial aid, or any painful effort

What we call depth in a book is often obscurity; and an author whose ot at only by severe enerally weak in the backbone of him Occasionally it is the dullness of the reader, but oftener the obtuseness of the writer

A strong vigorous writer is not obscure--at any rate, not habitually so; never leaves his reader in doubt, or compels him to mount the lever and help to raise his burden; but clutches it in his rasp and hurls it into the air, so that it is not only unencuave it birth, but is wholly detached and relieved, and set off against the clear blue of his iht is not like a rock propped up but still sod-bound, but is like a rock held aloft, or built into a buttress, with definite shape and outline

Let ht on Culture,” which appeared in the same publication a little later, and which is the first to bear his signature:--

In the conduct of life a e, but his wisdoar and foolish--but the result of it--independence, courage, culture, generosity, manliness, and that noble, huht sort of a e, under most circumstances, is pedantry; an exercise of wisdom is always Godlike We cannot pardon the absence of knowledge, but itselfit, we can be reasonable without boring people with our logic, and speak correctly without parsing our sentences

The end of knowledge is not that ais that a man may seem to have a full stomach; but the end of it is that a s as they are; be able to adjust hie and reason with the celerity of instinct, and that without any conscious exercise of his knowledge When we feel the food we have eaten, so; so when a ested it, and it is an encumbrance