A clever essayist, in speaking of the "obituary method of
appreciation," says that we feel a slight sense of impropriety
and insecurity in contemporary plaudits. "Wait till he is well
dead, and four or five decades of daisies have bloomed over him,
says the world; then, if there is any virtue in his works, we will
tag and label them and confer immortality upon him." But Mr.
Burroughs has not had to wait till the daisies cover him to be
appreciated. A multitude of his readers has sought him out and
walked amid the daisies with him, listened with him to the birds,
and gained countless delightful associations with all these things
through this personal relation with the author; and these friends
in particular will, I trust, welcome some "contemporary plaudits."

As a man, and as a writer, Mr. Burroughs has been in the public
eye for many years. At the age of twenty-three he had an article
printed in the "Atlantic Monthly," and in 1910 that journal
celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of his contributions to its
columns. Early in his career he received marked recognition from
able critics, and gratifying responses from readers. It is rare in
the history of an author that his books after fifty years of writing
have the freshness, lucidity, and charm that Mr. Burroughs's later
books have. A critic in 1876 speaks of his "quiet, believing style,
free from passion or the glitter of rhetoric, and giving one the
sense of simple eyesight"; and now, concerning one of his later
books, "Time and Change," Mr. Brander Matthews writes: "In these
pellucid pages--so easy to read because they are the result of hard
thinking--he brings home to us what is the real meaning of the
discoveries and the theories of the scientists. . . . He brings
to bear his searching scientific curiosity and his sympathetic
interpreting imagination. . . . All of them models of the essay
at its best--easy, unpedantic, and unfailingly interesting."

From school-children all over the United States, from nearly every
civilized country on the globe, from homes of the humble and of the
wealthy, from the scholar in his study, from the clergyman, the
lawyer, the physician, the business man, the farmer, the raftsman,
the sportsman, from the invalid shut in from the great outdoors
(but, thanks to our friend, not shut /out/ from outdoor blessings),
have come for many years heartfelt letters attesting the wholesome
and widespread influence of his works.

President Roosevelt a few years ago, in dedicating one of his books
to "Dear Oom John," voiced the popular feeling: "It is a good thing
for our people that you have lived, and surely no man can wish to
have more said of him."

Some years ago, the New York "Globe," on announcing a new book
by Mr. Burroughs, said, "It has been the lot of few writers of
this country or of any country to gain such good will and personal
esteem as for many years have been freely given to John Burroughs."
If we ask why this is so, we find it answered by Whitman, who,
in conversation with a friend, said, "John is one of the true
hearts--one of the true hearts--warm, sure, firm."

Mr. Burroughs has been much visited, much "appreciated," much
rhymed about, much painted, modeled, and photographed, and--much
loved. Because he has been so much loved, and because his influence
has been so far-reaching, it has seemed to me that a book which
gives familiar and intimate glimpses of him will be welcomed by
the legion who call him friend. The exceptional opportunities I
have enjoyed for many years past of observing him encourage me
in the undertaking.

The readers of Mr. Burroughs crave the personal relation with him.
Just as they want to own his books, instead of merely taking them
from the public libraries, so they want to meet the man, take him
by the hand, look into his eyes, hear his voice, and learn, if
possible, what it is that has given him his unfailing joy in life,
his serenity, his comprehensive and loving insight into the life of
the universe. They feel, too, a sense of deep gratitude to one who
has shown them how divine is the soil under foot--veritable star-dust
from the gardens of the Eternal. He has made us feel at one with
the whole cosmos, not only with bird and tree, and rock and flower,
but also with the elemental forces, the powers which are friendly or
unfriendly according as we put ourselves in right or wrong relations
with them. He has shown us the divine in the common and the near at
hand; that heaven lies about us here in this world; that the
glorious and the miraculous are not to be sought afar off, but are
here and now; and that love of the earth-mother is, in the truest
sense, love of the divine: "The babe in the womb is not nearer its
mother than are we to the invisible, sustaining, mothering powers of
the universe, and to its spiritual entities, every moment of our
lives." One who speaks thus of the things of such import to every
human soul is bound to win responses; he deals with things that come
home to us all. We want to know him.

Although retiring in habit, naturally seeking seclusion, Mr.
Burroughs is not allowed overindulgence in this tendency. One
may with truth describe him as a contemporary described Edward
FitzGerald--"an eccentric man of genius who took more pains to
avoid fame than others do to seek it." And yet he is no recluse.
When disciples seek out the hermit in hiding behind the vines at
Slabsides, they find a genial welcome, a simple, homely hospitality;
find that the author merits the Indian name given him by a clever
friend--"Man-not-afraid-of-company."

The simplicity and gentleness of this author and his strong interest
in people endear him to the reader; we feel these qualities in his
writings long before meeting him--a certain urbanity, a tolerant
insight and sympathy, and a quiet humor. These draw us to him.
Perhaps after cherishing his writings for years, cherishing also
a confident feeling that we shall know him some day, we obey a
sudden impulse, write to him about a bird or a flower, ask help
concerning a puzzling natural-history question, tell him what a
solace "Waiting" is, what a joy his books have been; possibly we
write some verses to him, or express appreciation for an essay
that has enlarged our vision and opened up a new world of thought.
Perhaps we go to see him at Slabsides, or in the Catskills, as the
case may be; perhaps in some unexpected way he comes to us--stops
in the same town where we live, visits the college where we are
studying, or we encounter him in our travels. In whatever way
the personal relation comes about, we, one and all, share this
feeling: he is no longer merely the favorite author, he is /our
friend/ John Burroughs.

I question whether there is any other modern writer so approachable,
or one we so desire to approach. He has so written himself into his
books that we know him before meeting him; we are charmed with his
directness and genuineness, and eager to claim the companionship his
pages seem to offer. Because of his own unaffected self, our
artificialities drop away when we are with him; we want to be and
say and do the genuine, simple thing; to be our best selves; and one
who brings out this in us is sure to win our love.

[Illustration: Slabsides. From a photograph by Charles S. Olcott]

Mr. Burroughs seems to have much in common with Edward FitzGerald;
we may say of him as has been said of the translator of the
"Rubaiyat": "Perhaps some worship is given him . . . on account
of his own refusal of worship for things unworthy, or even for things
merely conventional." Like FitzGerald, too, our friend is a lover
of solitude; like him he shuns cities, gets his exhilaration from
the common life about him; is inactive, easy-going, a loiterer
and saunterer through life; and could say of himself as FitzGerald
said, on describing his own uneventful days in the country: "Such
is life, and I believe I have got hold of a good end of it." Another
point of resemblance: the American dreamer is like his English
brother in his extreme sensitiveness--he cannot bear to inflict or
experience pain. "I lack the heroic fibre," he is wont to say.
FitzGerald acknowledged this also, and, commenting on his own
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
appeal. In 1912, a Western architect, in correspondence with the
writer concerning recent essays of Mr. Burroughs, said:--

I have had much pleasure and soul-help in reading and re-reading
"The Summit of the Years." In this, and in "All's Well with
the World," is mirrored the very soul of the gentlest, the most
lovable man-character I have ever come across in literature or
life. . . .To me all his books, from "Wake-Robin" to "Time and
Change," radiate the most joyous optimism. . . . During the past
month I have devoted my evenings to re-reading [them]. . . . He
has always meant a great deal more to me than merely intellectual
pleasure, and, next to Walt Whitman, has helped me to keep my life
as nearly open to the influences of outdoors and the stars as may
be in a dweller in a large town.

As I write, a letter comes from a Kansas youth, now a graduate
student at Yale, expressing the hope that he can see Mr. Burroughs
at Slabsides in April: "There is nothing I want to say--but for a
while I would like to be near him. He is my great good teacher
and friend. . . . As you know, he is more to me than Harvard or
Yale. He is the biggest, simplest, and serenest man I have met
in all the East."

I suppose there is no literary landmark in America that has had a
more far-reaching influence than Slabsides. Flocks of youths and
maidens from many schools and colleges have, for the past fifteen
years, climbed the hill to the rustic cabin in all the gayety and
enthusiasm of their young lives. But they have seen more than
the picturesque retreat of a living author; they have received a
salutary impression made by the unostentatious life of a man who
has made a profound impression on his day who has made a profound
impression on his day and age; they have gone their separate ways
with an awakened sense of the comradeship it is possible to have
with nature, and with an ennobling affection for the one who has
made them aware of it. And this affection goes with them to whatever
place on the globe their destinies carry them. It is transmitted to
their children; it becomes a very real part of their lives.

"My dear John Burroughs--Everybody's dear John Burroughs," a friend
writes him from London, recounting her amusing experiences in the
study of English birds. And it is "Everybody's dear John Burroughs"
who stands in the wide doorway at Slabsides and gives his callers
a quiet, cordial welcome. And when the day is ended, and the
visitor goes his way down the hill, he carries in his heart a
new treasure--the surety that he has found a comrade.

Having had the privilege for the past twelve years of helping
Mr. Burroughs with his correspondence, I have been particularly
interested in the spontaneous responses which have come to him
from his young readers, not only in America, but from Europe,
New Zealand, Australia. Confident of his interest, they are boon
companions from the start. They describe their own environment,
give glimpses of the wild life about them, come to him with their
natural-history difficulties; in short, write as to a friend of
whose tolerant sympathy they feel assured. In fact, this is true
of all his correspondents. They get on easy footing at once. They
send him birds, flowers, and insects to identify; sometimes live
animals and birds--skylarks have been sent from England, which he
liberated on the Hudson, hoping to persuade them to become
acclimated; "St. John's Bread," or locust pods, have come to him
from the Holy. Land; pressed flowers and ferns from the Himalayas,
from Africa, from Haleakala.

Many correspondents are considerate enough not to ask for an answer,
realizing the countless demands of this nature made upon a man like
Mr. Burroughs; others boldly ask, not only for a reply, but for
a photograph, an autograph, his favorite poem written in his own
hand, a list of favorite books, his views on capital punishment,
on universal peace, on immortality; some naively ask for a sketch
of his life, or a character sketch of his wife with details of their
home life, and how they spend their time; a few modestly hope he
will write a poem to them personally, all for their very own. A
man of forty-five is tired of the hardware business, lives in the
country, sees Mr. Burroughs's essays in the "Country Calendar,"
and asks him to "learn" him to "rite for the press."

Some readers take him to task for his opinions, some point out
errors, or too sweeping statements (for he does sometimes make
them); occasionally one suggests other topics for him to write
about; others labor to bring him back into orthodox paths; hundreds
write of what a comfort "Waiting" has been; and there are countless
requests for permission to visit Slabsides, as well as invitations
to the homes of his readers.

Many send him verses, a few the manuscripts of entire books, asking
for criticism. (And when he does give criticism, he gives it
"unsweetened," being too honest to praise a thing unless in his
eyes it merits praise.) Numerous are the requests that he write
introductions to books; that he address certain women's clubs;
that he visit a school, or a nature-study club, or go from Dan to
Beersheba to hold Burroughs Days--each writer, as a rule, urging his
claim as something very special, to which a deaf ear should not be
turned. Not all his correspondents are as considerate as the little
girl who was especially eager to learn his attitude toward snakes,
and who, after writing a pretty letter, ended thus: "Inclosed you
will find a stamp, for I know it must be fearfully expensive and
inconvenient to be a celebrity."

Occasionally he is a little severe with a correspondent, especially
if one makes a preposterous statement, or draws absurd conclusions
from faulty observations. But he is always fair. The following
letter explains itself:--

Your first note concerning my cat and hog story made me as mad as a
hornet, which my reply showed. Your second note has changed me into
a lamb, as nearly as a fellow of seventy-five can become one. . . .

I have read, I think, every book you ever wrote, and do not let any
production of yours escape me; and I have a little pile of framed
copies of your inimitable "My Own" to diffuse among people at
Christmas; and all these your writings make me wonder and shed
metaphorical tears to think that you are such a heretic about
reason in animals. But even Homer nods; and it is said
Roosevelt has moments of silence. S. C. B.

The questions his readers propound are sometimes very amusing. A
physician of thirty years' practice asks in all seriousness how
often the lions bring forth their young, and whether it is true
that there is a relation between the years in which they breed
and the increased productivity of human beings. One correspondent
begs Mr. Burroughs to tell him how he and his wife and Theodore
Roosevelt fold their hands (as though the last-named ever folded
his), declaring he can read their characters with surprising
accuracy if this information is forthcoming. In this instance,
I think, Mr. Burroughs folded his hands serenely, leaving his
correspondent waiting for the valued data.

The reader will doubtless be interested to see the kind of letter
the children sometimes get from their friend. I am fortunate in
having one written in 1887 to a rhetoric class in Fulton, New York,
and one in 1911, written to children in the New York City schools,
both of which I will quote:--

West Park, N. Y., February 21, 1887

My Dear Young Friends,--

Your teacher Miss Lawrence has presumed that I might have something
to say to a class of boys and girls studying rhetoric, and, what is
more, that I might be disposed to say it. What she tells me about
your interest in my own writings certainly interests me and makes me
wish I might speak a helpful word to you. But let me tell you that
very little conscious rhetoric has gone into the composition of those
same writings.

Valuable as the study of rhetoric undoubtedly is, it can go but a
little way in making you successful writers. I think I have got
more help as an author from going a-fishing than from any textbook
or classbook I ever looked into. Miss Lawrence will not thank me for
encouraging you to play truant, but if you take Bacon's or Emerson's
or Arnold's or Cowley's essays with you and dip into them now and
then while you are waiting for the fish to bite, she will detect
some fresh gleam in your composition when next you hand one in.

There is no way to learn style so sure as by familiarity with nature,
and by study of the great authors. Shakespeare can teach you all
there is to be learned of the art of expression, and the rhetoric
of a live trout leaping and darting with such ease and sureness
cannot well be beaten.

What you really have in your heart, what you are in earnest about,
how easy it is to say that!

Miss Lawrence says you admire my essay on the strawberry. Ah! but
I loved the strawberry--I loved the fields where it grew, I loved
the birds that sang there, and the flowers that bloomed there, and
I loved my mother who sent me forth to gather the berries; I loved
all the rural sights and sounds, I felt near them, so that when, in
after years, I came to write my essay I had only to obey the old
adage which sums up all of the advice which can be given in these
matters, "Look in thy heart and write."

The same when I wrote about the apple. I had apples in my blood and
bones. I had not ripened them in the haymow and bitten them under
the seat and behind my slate so many times in school for nothing.
Every apple tree I had ever shinned up and dreamed under of a long
summer day, while a boy, helped me to write that paper. The whole
life on the farm, and love of home and of father and mother, helped
me to write it. In writing your compositions, put your rhetoric
behind you and tell what you feel and know, and describe what
you have seen.

All writers come sooner or later to see that the great thing is
to be simple and direct; only thus can you give a vivid sense of
reality, and without a sense of reality the finest writing is
mere froth.

Strive to write sincerely, as you speak when mad, or when in
love; not with the tips of the fingers of your mind, but with
the whole hand.

A noted English historian [Freeman] while visiting Vassar College
went in to hear the rhetoric class. After the exercises were over
he said to the professor, "Why don't you teach your girls to spin a
plain yarn?" I hope Miss Lawrence teaches you to spin a plain yarn.
There is nothing like it. The figures of rhetoric are not paper
flowers to be sewed upon the texture of your composition; they have
no value unless they are real flowers which sprout naturally from
your heart.

What force in the reply of that little Parisian girl I knew of! She
offered some trinkets for sale to a lady on the street. "How much
is this?" asked the lady, taking up some article from the little
girl's basket. "Judge for yourself. Madam, I have tasted no food
since yesterday morning." Under the pressure of any real feeling,
even of hunger, our composition will not lack point.

I might run on in this way another sheet, but I will stop. I have
been firing at you in the dark,--a boy or a girl at hand is worth
several in the bush, off there in Fulton,--but if any of my words
tingle in your ears and set you to thinking, why you have your
teacher to thank for it.

Very truly yours,
John Burroughs.

La Manda Park, Cal., February 24, 1911

My Dear Young Friends,--

A hint has come to me here in southern California, where I have
been spending the winter, that you are planning to celebrate my
birthday--my seventy-fourth this time, and would like a word from
me. Let me begin by saying that I hope that each one of you will
at least reach my age, and be able to spend a winter, or several of
them, in southern California, and get as much pleasure out of it
as I have. It is a beautiful land, with its leagues of orange
groves, its stately plains, its park-like expanses, its bright,
clean cities, its picturesque hamlets, and country homes, and all
looked down upon by the high, deeply sculptured mountains and
snow-capped peaks.

Let me hope also that when you have reached my age you will be as
well and as young as I am. I am still a boy at heart, and enjoy
almost everything that boys do, except making a racket.

Youth and age have not much to do with years. You are young so
long as you keep your interest in things and relish your daily
bread. The world is "full of a number of things," and they are
all very interesting.

As the years pass I think my interest in this huge globe upon which
we live, and in the life which it holds, deepens. An active interest
in life keeps the currents going and keeps them clear. Mountain
streams are young streams; they sing and sparkle as they go, and our
lives may be the same. With me, the secret of my youth in age is the
simple life--simple food, sound sleep, the open air, daily work, kind
thoughts, love of nature, and joy and contentment in the world in
which I live. No excesses, no alcoholic drinks, no tobacco, no tea
or coffee, no stimulants stronger than water and food.

I have had a happy life. I have gathered my grapes with the bloom
upon them. May you all do the same.

With all good wishes,
John Burroughs

"I have no genius for making gifts," Mr. Burroughs once said to
me, but how his works belie his words! In these letters, and in
many others which his unknown friends have received from him, are
gifts of rare worth, while his life itself has been a benefaction
to us all.

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
literature as well.

In thinking of Gilbert White one invariably thinks also of Selborne,
his open-air parish; in thinking of Thoreau one as naturally recalls
his humble shelter on the banks of Walden Pond; and it is coming to
pass that in thinking of John Burroughs one thinks likewise of his
hidden farm high on the wooded hills that overlook the Hudson,
nearly opposite Poughkeepsie. It is there that he has built himself
a picturesque retreat, a rustic house named Slabsides. I find that,
to many, the word "Slabsides" gives the impression of a dilapidated,
ramshackle kind of place. This impression is an incorrect one.
The cabin is a well-built two-story structure, its uneuphonious but
fitting name having been given it because its outer walls are formed
of bark-covered slabs. "My friends frequently complain," said Mr.
Burroughs, "because I have not given my house a prettier name, but
this name just expresses the place, and the place just meets the
want that I felt for something simple, homely, secluded--something
with the bark on."

Both Gilbert White and Thoreau became identified with their
respective environments almost to the exclusion of other fields.
The minute observations of White, and his records of them, extending
over forty years, were almost entirely confined to the district of
Selborne. He says that he finds that "that district produces the
greatest variety which is the most examined." The thoroughness
with which he examined his own locality is attested by his "Natural
History of Selborne." Thoreau was such a stay-at-home that he
refused to go to Paris lest he miss something of interest in
Concord. "I have traveled a good deal in Concord," he says in his
droll way. And one of the most delicious instances of provinciality
that I ever came across is Thoreau's remark on returning Dr. Kane's
"Arctic Explorations" to a friend who had lent him the book--"Most of
the phenomena therein recorded are to be observed about Concord."
In thinking of John Burroughs, however, the thought of the author's
mountain home as the material and heart of his books does not come
so readily to consciousness. For most of us who have felt the
charm, of his lyrical prose, both in his outdoor books and in his
"Indoor Studies," were familiar with him as an author long before we
knew there was a Slabsides--long before there was one, in fact, since
he has been leading his readers to nature for fifty years, while the
picturesque refuge we are now coming to associate with him has been
in existence only about fifteen years.

Our poet-naturalist seems to have appropriated all outdoors for
his stamping-ground. He has given us in his limpid prose intimate
glimpses of the hills and streams and pastoral farms of his native
country; has taken us down the Pepacton, the stream of his boyhood;
we have traversed with him the "Heart of the Southern Catskills,"
and the valleys of the Neversink and the Beaverkill; we have sat
upon the banks of the Potomac, and sailed down the Saguenay; we
have had a glimpse of the Blue Grass region, and "A Taste of Maine
Birch" (true, Thoreau gave us this, also, and other "Excursions"
as well); we have walked with him the lanes of "Mellow England";
journeyed "In the Carlyle Country"; marveled at the azure glaciers
of Alaska; wandered in the perpetual summerland of Jamaica; camped
with him and the Strenuous One in the Yellowstone; looked in awe and
wonder at that "Divine Abyss," the Grand Canon of the Colorado; felt
the "Spell of Yosemite," and idled with him under the sun-steeped
skies of Hawaii and by her morning-glory seas.

Our essayist is thus seen not to be untraveled, yet he is no
wanderer. No man ever had the home feeling stronger than has
he; none is more completely under the spell of a dear and familiar
locality. Somewhere he has said: "Let a man stick his staff into
the ground anywhere and say, 'This is home,' and describe things
from that point of view, or as they stand related to that spot,--the
weather, the fauna, the flora,--and his account shall have an
interest to us it could not have if not thus located and defined."

[Illustration: Riverby from the Orchard. From a photograph
by Charles S. Olcott]

Before hunting out Mr. Burroughs in his mountain hermitage, let
us glance at his conventional abode, Riverby, at West Park, Ulster
County, New York. This has been his home since 1874. Having chosen
this place by the river, he built his house of stone quarried from
the neighboring hills, and finished it with the native woods; he
planted a vineyard on the sloping hillside, and there he has
successfully combined the business of grape-culture with his
pursuits and achievements as a literary naturalist. More than
half his books have been written since he has dwelt at Riverby,
the earlier ones having appeared when he was a clerk in the Treasury
Department in Washington, an atmosphere supposedly unfriendly to
literary work. It was not until he gave up his work in Washington,
and his later position as bank examiner in the eastern part of New
York State, that he seemed to come into his own. Business life, he
had long known, could never be congenial to him; literary pursuits
alone were insufficient; the long line of yeoman ancestry back of
him cried out for recognition; he felt the need of closer contact
with the soil; of having land to till and cultivate. This need, an
ancestral one, was as imperative as his need of literary expression,
an individual one. Hear what he says after having ploughed in his
new vineyard for the first time: "How I soaked up the sunshine
to-day! At night I glowed all over; my whole being had had an
earth bath; such a feeling of freshly ploughed land in every
cell of my brain. The furrow had struck in; the sunshine had
photographed it upon my soul." Later he built him a little study
somewhat apart from his dwelling, to which he could retire and muse
and write whenever the mood impelled him. This little one-room
study, covered with chestnut bark, is on the brow of a hill which
slopes toward the river; it commands an extended view of the Hudson.
But even this did not meet his requirements. The formality and
routine of conventional life palled upon him; the expanse of the
Hudson, the noise of railway and steamboat wearied him; he craved
something more retired, more primitive, more homely. "You cannot
have the same kind of attachment and sympathy for a great river;
it does not flow through your affections like a lesser stream," he
says, thinking, no doubt, of the trout-brooks that thread his
father's farm, of Montgomery Hollow Stream, of the Red Kill, and
of others that his boyhood knew. Accordingly he cast about for
some sequestered spot in which to make himself a hermitage.