256 INDOOR STUDIES 



Perhaps this is the reason that my hest and most 

 enthusiastic readers appear to he women. In the 

 genesis of all my books, feeling goes a long way 

 before intellection. What I feel I can express, 

 and only what I feel. If I had run after the birds 

 only to write about them, I never should have writ- 

 ten anything that any one would have cared to 

 read. I must write from sympathy and love, or 

 not at all: I have in no sort of measure the gift of 

 the ready writer who can turn his pen to all sorts 

 of themes ; or the dramatic, creative gift of the great 

 poets, which enables them to get out of themselves 

 and present vividly and powerfully things entirely 

 beyond the circle of their own lives and experiences. 

 I go to the woods to enjoy myself, and not to report 

 them; and if I succeed, the expedition may by and 

 by bear fruit at my pen. When a writer of my 

 limited range begins to "make believe," or to go 

 outside of his experience, he betrays himself at 

 once. My success, such as it is, has been in put- 

 ting my own personal feelings and attractions into 

 subjects of universal interest. I have loved Nature 

 no more than thousands upon thousands of others 

 have, but my aim has been not to tell that love to 

 my reader, but to tell it to the trees and the birds 

 and to let them tell him. I think we all like this 

 indirect way the best. It will not do in literature 

 to compliment Nature and make love to her by open 

 profession and declaration: you must show your 

 love by your deeds or your spirit, and by the sincer- 

 ity of your service to her. 



