of each.
About the time of the Civil War he accepted a clerkship in the
Treasury Department at Washington, where he remained nine years.
It was here that he wrote his first book, "Wake-Robin," and a
part of the second, "Winter Sunshine." He says: "It enabled me to
live over again the days I had passed with the birds and in the
scenes of my youth. I wrote the book sitting at a desk in front
of an iron wall. I was the keeper of a vault in which many
millions of banknotes were stored. During my long periods of
leisure I took refuge in my pen. How my mind reacted from the
iron wall in front of me, and sought solace in memories of the
birds and of summer fields and woods!" In 1873 he exchanged the
iron wall in front of his desk for a large window overlooking the
Hudson, and the vault for a vineyard. Since then he has lived on
the banks of the Hudson in the midst of the woods and fields
which he most enjoys, adding daily to his fund of information
regarding the ways of nature. His close habit of observation,
coupled with his rare gift of imparting to the reader something
of his own interest and enthusiasm, has enabled him to interpret
nature in a most delightfully fascinating way. He gives the key
to his own success when he says, "If I name every bird I see in
my walk, describe its color and ways, etc., give a lot of facts
or details about the bird, it is doubtful if my reader is
interested. But if I relate the bird in some way to human life,
to my own life,--show what it is to me and what it is in the
landscape and the season,--then do I give my reader a live bird
and not a labeled specimen."
Mr. Burroughs thoroughly enjoys the country life, and in his
strolls through the woods or in the fields he is always ready to
stop and investigate anything new or interesting that he may
chance to see among the birds, or squirrels, or bees, or insects.
His long life of observation and study has developed remarkably
quick eyesight and a keen sense of hearing, which enable him to
detect all the activities of nature and to place a correct
interpretation upon them to an extent that few other naturalists
have realized.
When he writes he is simply living over again the experiences
which have delighted him, and the best explanation of the rare
pleasure that is imparted by his writings to every reader is
given in his own words: "I cannot bring myself to think of my
books as 'works,' because so little 'work' has gone to the making
of t
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