JOHN BURROUGHS 161 



located somewhere in the region between her 

 horns and her tail. 



Now, all this is valuable, and the use made of 

 it is laudable, but would we not rather have the 

 account than the cow, especially from Mr. Bur- 

 roughs ? Certainly, because to us it is the account 

 that he has come to stand for. And so, if we do 

 not love his scientific animals more, and his sci- 

 entific findings more, we shall, I think, love all 

 his other books more ; for we see now that, from 

 the beginning, he has regarded the facts of na- 

 ture as the solid substance of his books, to be 

 kept as free from fancy and from false report, as 

 his interpretation of them is to be kept free from 

 all exaggeration and cant. 



Here, then, are eleven volumes of honest see- 

 ing, honest feeling, honest reporting. Such hon- 

 esty of itself may not make good nature-literature, 

 but without such honesty there can be no good 

 nature-literature. 



Nature-literature is not less than the truth, but 

 more ; how much more, Mr. Burroughs himself 

 suggests to us in a passage about his literary 

 habits. 



" For my part," he says, " I can never inter- 



