Characteristic Replies to Mr. Burroughs 
shocking, as the Aé/antic article by John Burroughs, 
in which he dealt with Mr. Long and other modern 
nature students cruelly. We have had our time of 
swinging in the hammock and absorbing nature and 
human nature from “ Wake Robin” and “ Pepacton,” 
“ Riverby” and “Signs and Seasons.” I recall espe- 
cially with what delight I read his “ Bird Courtship ” 
and similar revelations of the things he could see that 
I could not. John Burroughs had become a saint 
along with Emerson and Thoreau, only he was not 
translated. 
No one who has not made a saint of Burroughs, and 
has not been in love with William J. Long, can appre- 
ciate the nightmare effect of that A¢/antic article. 
In this happy phrase Mr. Long recalled his lovers 
to his side: “. . . in this tempest of which I was the 
unwitting cause, and of which I am the 
wondering and unwilling center.” After 
that suggestion of the effect of the shock 
upon himself, we had a keen appetite for 
a new book from his pen. And the title! 
just the one we wanted, just the one 
that showed that he was not in the least 
cowed or soured by the experience, — 
“Wood Folk at School!” 
There is now no spell of sentiment. 
The bloom has gone, and it is the com- 
radeship of confidence and respect, the 
ruddy glow of health. 
What is it in William J. Long that can stand such 
an attack from a great master? It is the genius, un- 
approached by any other popular writer, by which he 
weaves the individuality and instinct of wild animals 
without sacrificing either to the other. No other has 
developed such power to make instinct and individ- 
uality the warp and woof of a perfect design... . 
William J. Long is the one student of nature whose 
reverence for animal instinct never deserts him, and with 
whom it never dims the eye to every charming personal 
trait. A deer is always true to his inheritance, and yet 
no deer was ever just like any other, any more than any 
two beautiful women or noble men are ever alike. 
9 
