BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.



Nature chose the spring of the year for the time of John Burroughs's
birth. A little before the day when the wake-robin shows itself,
that the observer might be on hand for the sight, he was born in
Roxbury, Delaware County, New York, on the western borders of the
Catskill Mountains; the precise date was April 3, 1837. Until 1863
he remained in the country about his native place, working on his
father's farm, getting his schooling in the district school and
neighboring academies, and taking his turn also as teacher. As he
himself has hinted, the originality, freshness, and wholesomeness of
his writings are probably due in great measure to the unliterary
surroundings of his early life, which allowed his mind to form itself
on unconventional lines, and to the later companionships with
unlettered men, which kept him in touch with the sturdy simplicities
of life.

>From the very beginnings of his taste for literature, the essay was his
favorite form. Dr. Johnson was the prophet of his youth, but he soon
transferred his allegiance to Emerson, who for many years remained his
"master enchanter." To cure himself of too close an imitation of the
Concord seer, which showed itself in his first magazine article,
Expression, he took to writing his sketches of nature, and about this
time he fell in with the writings of Thoreau, which doubtless confirmed
and encouraged him in this direction. But of all authors and of all