It was by no means a conscious imitation. Had I tried to imitate him,
probably the spurious character of my essay would have deceived no
one. It was one of those unconscious imitations that so often give an
impression of genuineness.... When I began to realize how deeply Emerson
had set his stamp upon me, I said to myself: "This will never do. I must
resist this influence. If I would be a true disciple of Emerson, I must
be myself and not another. I must brace myself by his spirit, and not go
tricked out in his manner, and his spirit was _'Never imitate.'_"
It was this resolution, as he has before told us, that turned him to
writing on outdoor subjects.
In rereading "Expression" recently, I was struck, not so much by
its Emersonian manner, as by its Bergsonian ideas. I had heard Mr.
Burroughs, when he came under the spell of Bergson in the summer of
1911, say that the reason he was so moved by the French philosopher was
doubtless because he found in him so many of his own ideas; and it was
with keen pleasure that I came upon these forerunners of Bergson written
before Bergson was born.
At the time when Mr. Burroughs was dropping the Emersonian manner,
and while his style was in the transition stage, he wrote an essay on
"Analogy," and sent it also to the "Atlantic," receiving quite a damper
on his enthusiasm when Lowell, the editor, returned it. But he sent it
to the old "Knickerbocker Magazine," where it appeared in 1862. Many
years later he rewrote it, and it was accepted by Horace Scudder, then
the "Atlantic's" editor; in 1902, after rewriting it the second time, he
published it in "Literary Values."
Because of the deep significance of them at this time in the career of
Mr. Burroughs, I shall quote the following letters received by him
from David A. Wasson, a Unitarian clergyman of Massachusetts, and a
contributor to the early numbers of the "Atlantic." Their encouragement,
their candor, their penetration, and their prescience entitle them to
a high place in an attempt to trace the evolution of our author. One
readily divines how much such appreciation and criticism meant to the
youthful essayist.