172 THE FACE OF THE FIELDS 



As an essayist, as a nature-writer I ought to 

 say, Mr. Burroughs's literary care is perhaps 

 nowhere so plainly seen as in the simple archi- 

 tecture of his essay plans, in their balance and 

 finish, a quality that distinguishes him from 

 others of the craft, and that neither gift nor 

 chance could so invariably supply. The common 

 fault of outdoor books is the catalogue raw 

 data, notes. There are paragraphs of notes in 

 Mr. Burroughs, volumes of them in Thoreau. 

 The average nature-writer sees not too much of 

 nature, but knows all too little of literary values; 

 he sees everything, gets a meaning out of no- 

 thing; writes it all down; and gives us what he 

 sees, which is precisely what everybody may see ; 

 whereas, we want also what he thinks and feels. 

 Some of our present writers do nothing but feel 

 and divine and fathom the animal psycho- 

 logists, whatever they are. The bulk of nature- 

 writing, however, is journalistic, done on the 

 spot, into a note-book, as were the journals of 

 Thoreau fragmentary, yet with Thoreau often 

 exquisite fragments bits of old stained glass, 

 unleaded, and lacking unity and design. 



No such fault can be found with Mr. Bur- 



