stood to us as the shore to the sea, and
received a thousand impresses of what we lived and suffered, have
significance to us that is not accounted for by anything we can see or
feel in them.

Here we see the youth of twenty-three setting forth a truth which he has
sedulously followed in his own writing about nature, the following of
which accounts so largely for the wide appeal his works have made.

Some time in 1860, Mr. Burroughs began to send essays to the New York
"Leader," a weekly paper, the organ of Tammany Hall at that time. His
first article was made up of three short essays--"World Growth," "New
Ideas," and "Theory and Practice." Here beyond question is the writer we
know:

The ideas that indicate the approach of a new era in history come like
bluebirds in the spring, if you have ever noticed how that is. The bird
at first seems a mere wandering voice in the air; you hear its carol on
some bright morning in March, but are uncertain of its course or origin;
it seems to come from some source you cannot divine; it falls like a
drop of rain when no cloud is visible; you look and listen, but to no
purpose. The weather changes, and it is not till a number of days that
you hear the note again, or, maybe, see the bird darting from a stake in
the fence, or flitting from one mullein-stalk to another. Its notes now
become daily more frequent; the birds multiply; they sing less in
the air and more when at rest; and their music is louder and more
continuous, but less sweet and plaintive. Their boldness increases and
soon you see them flitting with a saucy and inquiring air about barns
and outbuildings, peeping into dove-cota and stable windows, and
prospecting for a place to nest. They wage war against robins, pick
quarrels with swallows, and would forcibly appropriate their mud houses,
seeming to doubt the right of every other bird to exist but themselves.
But soon, as the season advances, domestic instincts predominate; they
subside quietly into their natural places, and become peaceful members
of the family of birds.

So the thoughts that indicate the approach of a new era in history at
first seem to be mere disembodied, impersonal voices somewhere in the
air; sweet and plaintive, half-sung and half-cried by some obscure and
unknown poet. We know not whence they come, nor whither they tend. It
is not a matter of sight or experience. They do not attach themselves
to any person or place, and their longitude and l