JOHN BURROUGHS 165 



ness of the sky. Not that I always want sweet 

 skies. It is ninety-eight degrees in the shade, and 

 three weeks since there fell a drop of rain. I 

 could sing like a robin for a sizzling, crackling 

 thunder-shower less for the sizzling and crack- 

 ling than for the shower. Thoreau is a succession 

 of showers " tempests " ; his pages are sheet- 

 lightning, electrifying, purifying, illuminating, 

 but not altogether conducive to peace. There is 

 a clear sky to most of Mr. Burroughs's pages, a 

 rural landscape, wide, gently rolling, with cattle 

 standing here and there beneath the trees. 



Mr. Burroughs's natural history is entirely nat- 

 ural, his philosophy entirely reasonable, his reli- 

 gion and ethics very much of the kind we wish 

 our minister and our neighbor might possess; 

 and his manner of writing is so unaffected that 

 we feel we could write in such a manner ourselves. 

 Only we cannot. 



Since the time he can be said to have " led " a 

 life, Mr. Burroughs has led a literary life; that 

 is to say, nothing has been allowed to interfere 

 with his writing; yet the writing has not been 

 allowed to interfere with a quiet successful busi- 

 ness, with his raising of grapes. 



