was opened to me in the midst of the old.

At once I was moved to write about the birds, and I began my first
paper, "The Return of the Birds," that fall, and finished it in
Washington, whither I went in October, and where I lived for ten
years. Writing about the birds and always treating them in
connection with the season and their environment, was, while I was
a government clerk, a kind of vacation. It enabled me to live over
again my days amid the sweet rural things and influences. The
paper just referred to is, as you may see, mainly written out of my
memories as a farm boy. The enthusiasm which Audubon had begotten
in me quickened and gave value to all my youthful experiences and
observations of the birds.


[This brings us to the time when our subject is fairly launched on
early manhood. He has regular employment--a clerkship in the office
of the Comptroller of the Currency, which, if not especially
congenial in itself, affords him leisure to do the things he most
wishes to do. He is even now growing in strength and efficiency
as an essayist.--C. B.]



SELF-ANALYSIS


March, 1909

My Dear Friend,--