poignant beauty and sweetness because it is your
birthday. It is the keynote to which the whole springtime music is set."
Or another: "If April 3d comes in like any other day, please understand
that it will be because she does not dare to show how glad she is over
her own doings." On another birthday, the same correspondent says: "I
find that you are so inwoven with the spring-time that I shall never
again be able to resolve the season into its elements. But I am the
richer for it. I feel a sort of compassion for one who has never seen
the spring through your eyes."

Mr. Burroughs puts his reader into close and sympathetic communion with
the open-air world as no other literary naturalist has done. Gilbert
White reported with painstaking fidelity the natural history of
Selborne; Thoreau gave Thoreau with glimpses of nature thrown in;
Richard Jefferies, in dreamy, introspective descriptions of rare beauty
and delicacy, portrayed his own mystical impressions of nature; but
Mr. Burroughs takes us with him to the homes and haunts of the wild
creatures, sets us down in their midst, and lets us see and hear and
feel just what is going on. We read his books and echo Whitman's verdict
on them: "They take me outdoors! God bless outdoors!" And since God
_has_ blessed outdoors, we say, "God bless John Burroughs for taking us
out of doors with him!"

Our writer never prates about nature, telling us to look and admire. He
loves the common, everyday life about him, sees it more intimately than
you or I see it, and tells about it so simply and clearly that he begets
a like feeling in his reader. It was enjoined of the early Puritans "to
walke honestlie in the sweete fields and woodes." How well our friend
has obeyed this injunction!

And what an unobtrusive lover he is! Although it is through him that his
mistress stands revealed, it is not until we look closely that we spy
her adorer in the background, intent only on unveiling her charms.
How does he do this? First by succumbing himself--Nature's graces, her
inconsistencies, even her objectionable traits appeal to him. Like
the true lover, he is captivated by each of her phases, and surrenders
himself without reserve. Such homage makes him the recipient of her
choicest treasures, her most adorable revelations.

(Illustration of Mr. Burroughs sitting for a Statuette. From a
photograph by Charles S. Olcott)

I have mentioned Gilbert White's contributions to the literature about
na