JOHN BURROUGHS 169 



touched, and sought asylum at Walden. But 

 Walden was not distant enough. If Mr. Bur- 

 roughs in Roxbury, New York, found it neces- 

 sary to take to the woods in order to escape from 

 Emerson, then Thoreau should have gone to 

 Chicago, or to Xamiltapec. 



It is the strain, in Thoreau, that wearies us; 

 his sweating among the stumps and woodchucks, 

 for a bean crop netting him eight dollars, seventy- 

 one and one half cents. But such beans ! Beans 

 with minds and souls! Yet, for baking, plain 

 beans are better than these transcendental beans, 

 because your transcendental beans are always 

 baked without pork. A family man, however, can- 

 not contemplate that piddling patch with any pa- 

 tience, even though he have a taste for literature 

 as real as his taste for beans. It is better to watch 

 Mr. Burroughs pruning his grape-vines for a 

 crop to net him one thousand, three hundred and 

 twenty-five dollars, and no cents, and no half- 

 cents. Here are eighteen acres to be cultivated, 

 whose fruit is to be picked, shipped, and sold in 

 the New York markets at a profit — a profit 

 plainly felt in Mr. Burroughs's books. 



The most worthy qualities of good writing are 



