26 WILLIAM BARTRAM 



countenance was expressive of benignity and happiness. This was the 

 botanist, traveller, and philosopher we had come to see.^^ 



Both sketches of Bartram emphasize his modesty and sim- 

 plicity and, along with what we know from other sources, help 

 us to round out the character of the man. William Bartram had 

 modesty and integrity; he had piety and idealism, and yet a 

 sense of the practical; he had geniality and optimism; he had 

 courage and enthusiasm; he enjoyed keenly the simple vicissi- 

 tudes of life. Above all, he had an insatiable curiosity. These 

 characteristics permeate his writing and make the reading of it 

 the exhilarating experience of communing with a rich personality. 



Perhaps Bartram's curiosity should be stressed first among the 

 attributes that have helped to make his writings a memorable 

 discovery. In an age when what is rather vaguely called " the 

 spirit of romanticism" imbued man with a new sense of wonder, 

 Bartram strove to know the curiosities of nature, and he was at 

 once naive enough and subtle enough to see the marvelous and 

 curious even in the most ordinary and normal manifestations 

 of nature. He was primarily a naturalist, to be sure, but his 

 interests were eclectic. He observed trees and shrubs, geological 

 formations and Indian mounds, land and aquatic animals, man 

 and woman, human institutions and divine emanations. His 

 curiosity marks him a child of an age when men sought " to 

 become more and more aware of the infinite ties binding all 

 men together to each other and to the great forces of the uni- 

 verse of which they are the noblest manifestation," ^^ and 

 coupled with his abilities and modesty it has proved especially 

 atr active. 



" Obedient to the admonitions of my attendant spirit, curi- 

 osity," he confesses, "... I again sat off on my southern 

 excursion ..." {Travels, 9). His curiosity leads him on, and 

 Bartram yields to its admonitions easily and cheerfully. His 

 love of the unknown is a keen but pleasurable appetite. He 

 remains in any place only long enough to taste its beauty. At 

 Augusta, he tells us, he was "much delighted with the new 



^■^ William Dunlap, A History of the American Theatre. New York, 1832, 

 p. 170. 



°* John H. Randall, The Making of the Modern Mind. Boston, 1926, p. 42. 



