The Last Harvest

The Last Harvest, by John
Burroughs

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Title: The Last Harvest
Author: John Burroughs
Release Date: July 25, 2006 [EBook #18903]
Language: English
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[Illustration]
THE LAST HARVEST

BY
JOHN BURROUGHS

BOSTON AND NEW YORK
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
The Riverside Press Cambridge
1922

COPYRIGHT, 1922, BY HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
* * * * *

But who is he with modest looks And clad in homely russet brown? He
murmurs near the running brooks A 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 you He will seem worthy of your love.
The outward shows of sky and earth, Of hill and valley, he has viewed;
And impulses of deeper birth Have come to him in solitude.
In common things that round us lie Some random truths he can
impart-- The harvest of a quiet eye That broods and sleeps on his own
heart.
WORDSWORTH

PREFACE

Most of the papers garnered here were written after fourscore
years--after the heat and urge of the day--and are the fruit of a long life
of observation and meditation.
The author's abiding interest in Emerson is shown in his close and
eager study of the Journals during these later years. He hungered for
everything that concerned the Concord Sage, who had been one of the
most potent influences in his life. Although he could discern flies in the
Emersonian amber, he could not brook slight or indifference toward
Emerson in the youth of to-day. Whatever flaws he himself detected, he
well knew that Emerson would always rest secure on the pedestal
where long ago he placed him. Likewise with Thoreau: If shortcomings
were to be pointed out in this favorite, he wished to be the one to do it.
And so, before taking Thoreau to task for certain inaccuracies, he takes
Lowell to task for criticizing Thoreau. He then proceeds, not without
evident satisfaction, to call attention to Thoreau's "slips" as an observer
and reporter of nature; yet in no carping spirit, but, as he himself has
said: "Not that I love Thoreau less, but that I love truth more."
The "Short Studies in Contrasts," the "Day by Day" notes, "Gleanings,"
and the "Sundown Papers" which comprise the latter part of this, the
last, posthumous volume by John Burroughs, were written during the
closing months of his life. Contrary to his custom, he wrote these
usually in the evening, or, less frequently, in the early morning hours,
when, homesick and far from well, with the ceaseless pounding of the
Pacific in his ears, and though incapable of the sustained attention
necessary for his best work, he was nevertheless impelled by an
unwonted mental activity to seek expression.
If the reader misses here some of the charm and power of his usual
writing, still may he welcome this glimpse into what John Burroughs
was doing and thinking during those last weeks before the illness came
which forced him to lay aside his pen.
CLARA BARRUS
WOODCHUCK LODGE

ROXBURY-IN-THE-CATSKILLS

CONTENTS
I. EMERSON AND HIS JOURNALS
II. FLIES IN AMBER
III. ANOTHER WORD ON THOREAU
IV. A CRITICAL GLANCE INTO DARWIN
V. WHAT MAKES A POEM?
VI. SHORT STUDIES IN CONTRASTS:
The Transient and the Permanent
Positive and Negative
Palm and Fist
Praise and Flattery
Genius and Talent
Invention and Discovery
Town and Country
VII. DAY BY DAY
VIII. GLEANINGS
IX. SUNDOWN PAPERS:
Re-reading Bergson

Revisions
Bergson and Telepathy
Meteoric Men and Planetary Men
The Daily Papers
The Alphabet
The Reds of Literature
The Evolution of Evolution
Following One's Bent
Notes on the Psychology of Old Age
Facing the Mystery
INDEX
The frontispiece portrait is from a photograph by Miss Mabel Watson
taken at Pasadena, California, shortly before Mr. Burroughs's death.

THE LAST HARVEST
I
EMERSON AND HIS JOURNALS
I
Emerson's fame as a writer and thinker was firmly established during
his lifetime by the books he gave to the world. His Journals, published
over a quarter of a century after his death, nearly or quite double the
bulk of his writing, and while they do not rank in literary worth with
his earlier works, they yet throw much light upon his life and character

and it is a pleasure to me, in these dark and troublesome