138 THE FACE OF THE FIELDS 



pages may be anthropomorphic, human ; not, 

 however, because I humanize my bees and toads, 

 but because I am human, and nature is meaning- 

 ful ultimately only as it is related to me. I must 

 not confuse myself with nature ; nor yet " strug- 

 gle against fact and law to develop and keep" 

 my " own individuality." I must not anthropo- 

 morphize nature ; never denature nature ; never 

 follow my own track through the woods, ima- 

 gining that I am on the trail of a better-class 

 wolf or a two-legged bear. I must never senti- 

 mentalize over nature again — write no more 

 about "Buzz-Buzz and Old Man Barberry"; 

 write no more about wailing winds and weeping 

 skies ; for mine is not " a poet's vision dim," but 

 an open-eyed, scientific sight of things as they 

 actually are. Once I have seen them, gathered 

 them, if then they turn to poetry, let them turn. 

 For so does the squash turn to poetry when it 

 is brought in from the field. It turns to pie ; it 

 turns to poetry ; and it still remains squash. 



Good nature-literature, like all good literature, 

 is more lived than written. Its immortal part 

 hath elsewhere than the ink-pot its beginning. 

 The soul that rises with it, its life's star, first 



