Il8 AI^EXANDER WILSON: POET-NATURAUST 



well be, and as full of the freshness, the fragrance, 

 and the freedom of the woods as are his own writ- 

 ings. But his nature was so characterized by 

 growth and development that we must study him 

 at least in two periods of his life. 



The picture that was painted of him a few years 

 before he came to America by James Craw is said 

 to be an excellent reproduction of his youthful 

 appearance. His face is exceedingly narrow, and 

 about the large dark eyes there is not the keen 

 expression which was noticed by some who have 

 described his appearance later in life, but rather 

 the wistfulness of the dreamer, looking far beyond 

 him with heavy drooping lids. His high but some- 

 what narrow forehead is lost in a profusion of 

 straight-cut hair that falls over it ; his nose is long 

 and thin and noticeably hooked, while above his 

 narrow but rounding chin is a well-bowed sensi- 

 tive mouth with low-hanging underlip. About 

 his shoulders falls his hair in long natural waves, 

 and the hand on which he rests his face is a slender 

 and graceful one for a man who has earned his 

 bread with such hard labor. Withal, his long thin 

 face, with its dreamy, almost melancholy expres- 

 sion, is not uncomely, though certainly not hand- 

 some. It is the face rather of the poet than of 

 the man of action, and would scarcely lead us to 

 expect the dauntless pertinacity of purpose which 

 at last made him famous ; nor in the sweet, almost 

 sentimental, features can we catch the faintest 

 glimpse of the vein of coarseness which runs 

 through his earlier poems. 



In considering Wilson's nature we must not for- 



