CONCLUSION 



The reasons for the impression that William Bartram has 

 produced upon modern thought and literature may be sum- 

 marized in one statement: once more the time and the man met. 

 The Travels appeared at an auspicious moment, at a time when 

 the movement vaguely called Romantic was rapidly spreading 

 over most of Europe. Whatever else that movement — or series 

 of movements, as it may more appropriately be called — repre- 

 sented, one of its definite characteristics was a quickened interest 

 in nature and in anything that increased man's knowledge of 

 nature. Bartram' s vivid descriptions of so many strange and 

 marvelous natural curiosities could not fail to attract the atten- 

 tion of a world become aware of the complexity and beauty of 

 nature. In addition, America was still a strange and remote 

 land, and especially the section described by Bartram — the 

 Carolinas and the Floridas — and, therefore, wonderfully inter- 

 esting. Three years before the appearance of his book in Phila- 

 delphia, an American friend studying in Europe urged him to 

 publish the work there, for, he wrote, " Whatever regards the 

 Natural History of America is particularly sought after; and 

 everything that tends in the least to reflect any light on this 

 interesting subject is purchased and read with avidity." ^ 



When his Travels finally appeared in Europe it was discovered 

 to be the work of — to use the late Professor Parrington's charac- 

 terization — " A gentle, kindly spirit, animated by the genial 

 philosophy of the times." ^ It was the work of a unique person- 

 ality. Here spoke a lover of nature, one possessed of all the 

 enthusiasm generally associated with Romanticism, but one who 

 at the same time had the objective eyes of a scientist. Unlike 

 the accounts of previous observers of the American scene, his 

 was not concerned with utilitarian problems; it was not an 

 inventory of resources but a picture of the landscape. Mary E. 



^Letter from Benjamin S. Barton, dated at Edinburgh, February 19, 1788. 

 Bartram Papers, I. 



* Louis Vernon Parrington, Encyclopaedia Britannica (Fourteenth ed.), I, 787. 



199 



