INTRODUCTION 
7 
to the fortunes of his country. But he 
was a philosopher rather than a fighter. 
When he was seventy-nine I met him in 
the studio of an artist where he had gone 
to see his portrait. 
“I’ve been working very steadily, these 
years,” he said, “at the kind of writing 
that requires close thinking. Now I'm 
going to play a little and be happy if I 
can.” 
“Why ‘if?” 
“This war—I can’t help thinking about 
it.” 
Read “John Burroughs: Boy and Man” 
by Clara Barrus, M. D. (Doubleday 
Page) to see how all his. life entered into 
the making of his books. He began 
gathering material for them before he 
knew what he was doing. There was a 
rock in a hillside pasture near an iron- 
wood tree. “Here I climbed at sundown,” 
he says, “to rest from work and play, 
and to listen to the vesper sparrow sing.” 
When little John was only seven, he 
had heard a strange bird sing in the 
woods. He asked his brothers what it 
was and they could not tell him. In 
