i 5 2 THE FACE OF THE FIELDS 



port and stay. The very clearing of the land for 

 his vineyard was a preparation of himself physi- 

 cally and morally for a more fruitful life. 



" Before the snow was off in March," he says in 

 " Literary Values," " we set to work under-drain- 

 ing the moist and springy places. My health and 

 spirits improved daily. I seemed to be under- 

 draining my own life and carrying off the stag- 

 nant water, as well as that of the land." And so 

 he was. There are other means of doing it — tak- 

 ing drugs, playing golf, walking the streets ; but 

 surely the advantages and the poetry are all in 

 favor of the vineyard. And how much fitter a 

 place the vineyard to mellow and ripen life, than 

 a city roof of tarry pebbles and tin ! 



Though necessarily personal and subjective, 

 Mr. Burroughs's writing is entirely free from self- 

 exploitation and confession. There are pages scat- 

 tered here and there dealing briefly and frankly 

 with his own natural history, but our thanks are 

 due to Mr. Burroughs that he never made a busi- 

 ness of watching himself. Once he was inveigled 

 by a magazine editor into doing " An Egotisti- 

 cal Chapter," wherein we find him as a boy of 

 sixteen reading essays, and capable at that age 



