1 1 o B Y- WA YS A ND BIRD-NO TES. 



and artist. Thoreau is a striking example of 

 a poet spoiled by this direct study. Compare 

 his poetry with that of Keats or Tennyson or 

 Emerson, and it will be discovered that his ob- 

 vious attitudinizing before Nature prevents 

 him from appearing sincere, simple, and fresh 

 in his conceits. It seems that the available 

 material which one gets from Nature, save 

 for scientific purposes, must be received aslant, 

 so to speak must be discovered by indirect 

 vision and while one is looking for some- 

 thing else. Thus while Thoreau was besieg- 

 ing Nature for her poetic essences, he failed to 

 find them, though Keats had stumbled upon 

 them apparently by accident* 



" What melodies are these ? 

 They sound as through the whispering of trees." 



If ever the songs of a poet 



" Come as through bubbling honey," 

 and 



"In trammels of perverse deliciousness," 



the songs of Keats did, and in them we may 

 find in the best measure the influences of the 

 indirect study of Nature. 



Now, there are few persons who, like Keats, 

 will absorb these influences without some stim- 

 ulus other than the poet's love of solitude ; 

 nor is solitude for its own sake wholesome. 

 On the contrary, it is inimical to healthy phys- 

 ical and mental development. Keats* might 

 have lived to finish all his " divine fragments " 

 if he had been an enthusiastic canoeist, archer, 

 or bicyclist. He died of consumption at the 

 age of twenty-five years ! If William Cullen 



