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قراءة كتاب The Mentor: American Naturalists, Vol. 7, Num. 9, Serial No. 181, June 15, 1919
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The Mentor: American Naturalists, Vol. 7, Num. 9, Serial No. 181, June 15, 1919
THE MENTOR
NUMBER 9
NATURE AND THE POET
There are those who look at Nature from the standpoint of conventional and artificial life—from parlor windows and through gilt-edged poems—the sentimentalists. At the other extreme are those who do not look at Nature at all, but are a grown part of her, and look away from her toward the other class—the backwoodsmen and pioneers, and all rude and simple persons. Then there are those in whom the two are united or merged—the great poets and artists. In them the sentimentalist is corrected and cured, and the hairy and taciturn frontiersman has had experience to some purpose. The true poet knows more about Nature than the naturalist because he carries her open secret in his heart. Eckerman could instruct Goethe in ornithology, but could not Goethe instruct Eckerman in the meaning and mystery of the bird?
It is the soul the poet interprets, not Nature. There is nothing in Nature but what the beholder supplies. Does the sculptor interpret the marble or his own ideal? Is the music in the instrument, or in the soul of the performer? Nature is a dead clod until you have breathed upon it with your own genius. You commence with your own soul, not with woods and waters; they furnish the conditions, and are what you make them. Did Shelley interpret the song of the skylark, or Keats that of the nightingale? They interpreted their own wild, yearning hearts. You cannot find what the poets find in the woods until you take the poet's heart to the woods. He sees Nature through a colored glass, sees it truthfully, but with an indescribable charm added, the aureole of the spirit. A tree, a cloud, a sunset, have no hidden meaning that the art of the poet is to unlock for us. Every poet shall interpret them differently, and interpret them rightly, because the soul is infinite. Nature is all things to men. The "light that never was on sea or land" is what the poet gives us, and is what we mean by the poetic interpretation of Nature.
The poet does not so much read in Nature's book—though he does this too—as write his own thoughts there; Nature is the page and he the type, and she takes the impression he gives. Of course the poet uses the truths of Nature also, and he establishes his right to them by bringing them home to us with a new and peculiar force—a quickening or kindling force. What science gives is melted in the fervent heat of the poet's passion, and comes back supplemented by his quality and genius. He gives more than he takes, always.
JOHN BURROUGHS.
THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION
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| JUNE 15th, 1919 | VOLUME 7 | NUMBER 9 |
Entered as second-class matter, March 10, 1913, at the postoffice at New York, N.Y., under the act of March 8, 1879; Copyright, 1919, by The Mentor Association, Inc.
FROM A PAINTING BY JOHN WOODHOUSE AUDUBON AND VICTOR GIFFORD AUDUBON.
IN THE AMERICAN MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY, NEW YORK
JOHN J. AUDUBON
BY COURTESY OF THE MUSEUM
| AMERICAN NATURALISTS | John James Audubon |
| ONE | |
"Audubon," says a recent biographer, Dr. Francis Hobart Herrick, "did one thing in particular, that of making known to the world the birds of his adopted land, and did it so well that his name will be held in everlasting remembrance." The father of the future naturalist was a French seafaring man and merchant-adventurer. While engaged in the sugar trade he frequently visited the port of Aux Cayes, in the island then called Santo Domingo, but now known as Haiti. As a dealer in West Indian commodities, Captain Audubon became a man of fortune. The son born to him and a lady of French origin at Aux Cayes, in 1785 (not in Louisiana in 1780, as some writers give it), was christened Jean Jacques Fougère. On being taken by his father to Nantes, France, when he was four years old, the little boy was received into the household of Madame Audubon, his step-mother, and given the name of his father, Jean Audubon.
Even at this early period of his life young Audubon forsook his classes at school to roam the woods searching for birds' nests. In his early teens he began to make drawings of birds that appeared near his home on the west coast of France. For a short time he studied in Paris under the famous artist, Jacques Louis David. At eighteen, Audubon was sent to America to learn the English language and the business methods of the New World. The tall, handsome boy found much happiness in discovering the wild denizens of his father's farm, "Mill Grove,"—a small estate near Philadelphia purchased by Captain Audubon during a visit to the United States. Here Audubon first had opportunity to study American bird life. He was a Nature lover, and he was also a gay young dandy, "notable for the elegance of his figure and the beauty of his features." When he met the charming Lucy Bakewell, whose father owned an adjoining estate, he immediately loved and courted her. It was she who became the guiding spirit of his life, who inspired him and, with material assistance, aided him to achieve his ambitions. Though engaged in business, the youth's heart was in the woods and fields. His method of posing lifeless subjects was unique, and his drawings were expertly done and very natural.
In 1808, Audubon married Lucy Bakewell and took her to live in the frontier settlement of Louisville, Kentucky. There a son was born. With a wife and child to support, Audubon continued his career as a merchant, and for several years owned and operated a store and mill at Henderson, Kentucky. In 1819 he failed in business, saving only a few personal possessions, including his drawings and his gun. As taxidermist, teacher and artist he earned a scant living during several disheartening years. His wife took a position as governess, and later became mistress of a private school in the South. The impelling motive of the naturalist's life was now the publication of his "Ornithology," for which he continued to make drawings under the most adverse conditions. Often he was reduced to painting signs and giving music and dancing lessons. To earn a passage on a boat during an exploring tour he would sometimes offer to do crayon portraits of the captain and passengers.