n in
these later years we have had John Muir and John Burroughs who cannot
be set low, but among American writers Thoreau was the pioneer of
nature-study. Audubon had preceded him but he worked mainly with the
brush; to multitudes Thoreau opened the gate to the secrets of our
natural environment. The subtle delicacy of the grass-blade, the
crystals of the snowflake, the icicle, the marvel of the weird
lines traced by the flocks of wild geese athwart the heavens as they
migrated, these he watched and recorded with loving accuracy and
sensitive poetic feeling as no one in our land before had done. I have
thrown a stone upon the cairn at Walden Pond which has now grown so
high through the tributes of his grateful admirers. I shall throw
still others in grateful admiration if the opportunity comes to me.

Many years ago I used to feel that Louisa Alcott and I were in a
certain way bracketed together. Both were children of Concord in a
sense, she by adoption and I through the fact that it had been the
home of my forbears for seven generations. We were nearly of the
same age and simultaneously made our first ventures into the world of
letters, taking the same theme, the Civil War. One phase of this she
portrayed in her _Hospital Sketches_, another, I in my _Colour
Guard_. So we started in the race together but Louisa soon
distanced me, emerging presently into matchless proficiency in her
books for children. I sometimes saw her after she had become famous
when she was attuning sweetly the hearts of multitudes of children
with her fine humanity. She was a stately handsome woman with a most
gracious and unobtrusive manner. She mingled with her neighbours, one
of the quietest members of the circle. Said a kinswoman of mine who
lived within a few doors:

It is so hard to think of Louisa as being a
distinguished personage; she sits down here with her
knitting or brings over her bread to be baked in
my oven as anybody might do, and chats about village
matters, as interested over the engagements of
the girls and sympathising with those in sorrow as
if she had no broader interest.

She was indeed one of those who bore her honours meekly. I recall
her vividly when she was well past youth, in the enjoyment of the
substantial gains success had brought. In her childhood she had known
pinching poverty, for her philosophic father could never exchange his
lucubrations for bread and clothes, philosophising, however, none th