One day in recounting some of the propitious things which have
come to him all unsought, he said: "How fortunate I have always
been! My name should have been 'Felix.'" But since "John" means
"the gracious gift of God," we are content that he was named
John Burroughs,



THE RETREAT OF A POET-NATURALIST


We are coming more and more to like the savor of the wild and the
unconventional. Perhaps it is just this savor or suggestion of
free fields and woods, both in his life and in his books, that
causes so many persons to seek out John Burroughs in his retreat
among the trees and rocks on the hills that skirt the western bank
of the Hudson. To Mr. Burroughs more perhaps than to any other
living American might be applied these words in Genesis: "See, the
smell of my son is as the smell of a field which the Lord hath
blessed"--so redolent of the soil and of the hardiness and plenitude
of rural things is the influence that emanates from him. His works
are as the raiment of the man, and to them adheres something as racy
and wholesome as is yielded by the fertile soil.

We are prone to associate the names of our three most prominent
literary naturalists,--Gilbert White, of England, and Thoreau and
John Burroughs, of America,--men who have been so /en rapport/ with
nature that, while ostensibly only disclosing the charms of their
mistress, they have at the same time subtly communicated much of
their own wide knowledge of nature, and permanently enriched our