over-sensitiveness and tendency to melancholy, said, "It is well
if the sensibility that makes us fearful of ourselves is diverted
to become a case of sympathy and interest with nature and mankind."
That this sensibility in Mr. Burroughs has been so diverted, all who
are familiar with his widespread influence on our national life and
literature will agree.

In a bright descriptive article written a few years ago, Miss Isabel
Moore dispels some preconceived and erroneous notions about Mr.
Burroughs, and shows him as he is--a man keenly alive to the human
nature and life around him. "The boys and girls buzzed about him,"
she says, "as bees about some peculiarly delectable blossom. He
walked with them, talked with them, entranced them . . . the most
absolutely human person I have ever met--a born comrade, if there
ever was one; in daily life a delightful acquaintance as well as a
philosopher and poet and naturalist, and a few other things." She
describes him riding with a lot of young people on a billowy load of
hay; going to a ball-game, at which no boy there enjoyed the contest
more, or was better informed as to the points of the game. "Verily,"
she says, "he has what Bjornson called 'the child in the heart.'"

It is the "child in the heart," and, in a way, the "child" in his
books, that accounts for his wide appeal. He often says he can
never think of his books as /works/, because so much play went into
the making of them. He has gone out of doors in a holiday spirit,
has had a good time, has never lost the boy's relish for his
outings, and has been so blessed with the gift of expression that
his own delight is communicated to his reader.

And always it is the man behind the book that makes the widest