Excerpt from Under the Apple Trees
I am quite certain that the majority of my readers would have me always stick to natural history themes. I sympathize with them. I am myself never so well pleased as when I can bring them a fresh bit of natural history, or give them a day with me in the fields and woods or along the murmuring streams. Birds and squirrels come home to us all in a way that speculative ideas do not. While writing my more philosophical dissertations, my mind often turns longingly toward the simple outdoor subjects which have engaged me so many years, and doubtless the mind of my reader does also when he is perusing them. But one cannot always choose at such times. Natural history is a matter of observation; it is a harvest which you gather when and where you find it growing. Birds and squirrels and flowers are not always in season, but philosophy we have always with us. It is a crop which we can grow and reap at all times and in all places, and it has its own value and brings its own satisfaction.
We are all philosophers, we all delight in finding the reason of things and in tracing the relation of things, and to know, for instance, what part chance plays in our lives, and what part is played by rigid law, is a worthy and engaging problem.
About the Publisher
Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com
This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works. Это и многое другое вы найдете в книге Under the Apple Trees (Classic Reprint) (John Burroughs)