122 THE FACE OF THE FIELDS 



quaint old cottage at Selborne. But cabin and 

 cottage alike were to dwell in; and the bachelor 

 of the one was as much in need of a wife, and as 

 much in love with the earth, as the bachelor in 

 the other. Thoreau's " Walden " is as parochial 

 and as domestic with its woodchuck and beans as 

 White's "Natural History of Selborne " with its 

 tame tortoise and garden. 



In none of our nature-writers, however, is this 

 love for the earth more manifest than in John 

 Burroughs. It is constant and dominant in him, 

 an expression of his religion. He can see the earth 

 only as the best possible place to live in to live 

 with rather than in or on ; for he is unlike the 

 rector of Selborne and the wild-tame man of 

 Walden in that he is married and a farmer con- 

 ditions, these, to deepen one's domesticity. Show- 

 ing somewhere along every open field in Bur- 

 roughs's books is a piece of fence, and among his 

 trees there is always a patch of gray sloping roof. 

 He grew up on a farm (a most excellent place 

 to grow up on), became a clerk, but not for long, 

 then got him a piece of land, built him a home 

 out of unhewn stone, and set him out an eighteen- 

 acre vineyard. And ever since he has lived in his 



