Frontispiece

THE LAST HARVEST

BY

JOHN BURROUGHS

Seal

BOSTON AND NEW YORK

HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY

The Riverside Press Cambridge

1922

But who is he with modest looksAnd clad in homely russet brown?He murmurs near the running brooksA music sweeter than their own.

He is retired as noontide dew,Or fountain in a noon-day grove;And you must love him, ere to youHe will seem worthy of your love.

The outward shows of sky and earth,Of hill and valley, he has viewed;And impulses of deeper birthHave come to him in solitude.

In common things that round us lieSome random truths he can impart—The harvest of a quiet eyeThat broods and sleeps on his own heart.

Wordsworth

[vii]

PREFACE

Most of the papers garnered here were written after fourscoreyears—after the heat and urge of the day—and are the fruit of a longlife of observation and meditation.

The author's abiding interest in Emerson is shown in his close andeager study of the Journals during these later years. He hungered foreverything that concerned the Concord Sage, who had been one of themost potent influences in his life. Although he could discern flies inthe Emersonian amber, he could not brook slight or indifference towardEmerson in the youth of to-day. Whatever flaws he himself detected, hewell knew that Emerson would always rest secure on the pedestal wherelong ago he placed him. Likewise with Thoreau: If shortcomings were tobe pointed out in this favorite, he wished to be the one to do it. Andso, before taking Thoreau to task for certain inaccuracies, he takesLowell to task for criticizing Thoreau. He then proceeds, not withoutevident satisfaction, to call attention to Thoreau's "slips" as anobserver and reporter of nature; yet in no carping spirit, but, as hehimself has said: "Not that I love Thoreau less, but that I love truthmore."

The "Short Studies in Contrasts," the "Day by [viii]Day" notes,"Gleanings," and the "Sundown Papers" which comprise the latter partof this, the last, posthumous volume by John Burroughs, were writtenduring the closing months of his life. Contrary to his custom, hewrote these usually in the evening, or, less frequently, in the earlymorning hours, when, homesick and far from well, with the ceaselesspounding of the Pacific in his ears, and though incapable of thesustained attention necessary for his best work, he was neverthelessimpelled by an unwonted mental activity to seek expression.

If the reader misses here some of the charm and power of his usualwriting, still may he welcome this glimpse into what John Burroughs

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