It
reaches my emotions as a novelist who splashed his sentiment with
equal profusion never could. My share of the race mind is willing
even to be tricked into sympathy with its environment. I would
rather believe that the sparrow on my telephone wire is swearing
at the robin on my lawn than never to notice either of them!
How curiously complete and effective is the service of these
nature books, when all is considered. There is no better instance,
I imagine, of how literature and life act and react upon one
another. The plain American takes to the woods because he wants
to, he does not know why. The writing American puts the woods into
his books, also because he wants to, although I suspect that
sometimes he knows very well why. Nevertheless, the same general
tendency, the same impulse, lie behind both. But reading nature
books makes us crave more nature, and every gratification of
curiosity marks itself upon the sub-consciousness. Thus the clear,
vigorous tradition of the soil passes through us to our books, and
from our books to us. It is the soundest, the sweetest, if not the
greatest and deepest inspiration of American literature.
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