“Oh, our manhood’s prime vigor! No spirit feels waste,
Not a muscle is stopped in its playing nor sinew unbraced.
Oh, the wild joys of living! The leaping from rock to rock;
The strong rending of boughs from the fir-trees; the cool, silver
shock
Of the plunge in a pool’s living water; the hunt of the bear,
And the sultriness showing the lion is crouched in his lair.
* * * * *
How good is man’s life, the mere living! How fit to employ
All the heart and the soul and the senses forever in joy!”
These splendid lines of Browning were Roosevelt’s outdoor creed. His
exploits as a hunter in Africa were merely a development of his life
as a naturalist and out-of-door man. At Harvard Roosevelt had devoted
himself to a study of natural science, and had even thought seriously
of making it his lifework. Politics claimed him then, but always
underlying Roosevelt the statesman was Roosevelt the naturalist.
Francis Parkman--hunter, trapper, horticulturist and America’s most
interesting historian--was Roosevelt’s example for his life in the
open. There was a close relation between the careers of the two men.
Parkman was handicapped in health and bad eyesight. Roosevelt, as a
youth, had a weak frame and his sight was also poor. Parkman loved
Nature and had a passion for writing. He had an indomitable will that
enabled him to overcome his physical handicaps and to make a splendid
mark in literature. Roosevelt possessed the same qualities.
It was with Parkman in mind that Roosevelt scaled the most difficult
peaks of the Alps; plunged in the Canadian wilderness; took up prairie
life. As a result of the trained eye and trained ear Roosevelt gained
through these experiences, in his books will be found observations of
animal life and bird life, and a knowledge of plants and trees that is
enlightening to even the experienced naturalist.
John Burroughs, in his book “Camping and Tramping with Roosevelt,”
states that when Roosevelt entered Yellowstone Park he wanted all
the freedom and solitude possible. The Colonel craved to be alone
with Nature. It was evident that he was hungry for the wild and the
aboriginal. It was this hunger that came to him periodically and
resulted in his going forth on hunting and exploring trips to the Far
West, Africa and Brazil.
As an illustration of the fact that it was love of nature itself
more than love of killing that drove Roosevelt into the wilds,
Burroughs describes how, at their second camp, which they reached in
mid-afternoon, their attention was attracted by a strange note in the
spruce woods. The question arose as to whether it was a bird or a
beast. Their guide thought it was an owl.
“Let’s run that bird down,” said the Colonel to Burroughs.
They ran across a small open plain and at last saw the bird on the peak
of a spruce. Burroughs imitated its call, but they could not discern
the species of the bird.
“Why did we not think to bring the glasses?” said Roosevelt.
“I will run and get them,” said Burroughs.
“No,” said Roosevelt, “you stay here and keep that bird treed and I
will fetch them.”
Off the Colonel went like a boy, returning swiftly with the glasses.
Then it was discovered that it was indeed an owl; a pigmy owl, not much
larger than a bluebird. Roosevelt was as delighted as if he had slain a
grizzly. He had never seen a bird like this before.
At one time Roosevelt and his companions camped at the Yellowstone
Canyon, with the river four or five hundred feet below them. Mountain
sheep appeared on the opposite side. The rules of the park forbade
hunting, so the sheep showed no fear of them. Between the sheep and the
riverbed there was a precipice. The question arose among the watchers
as to whether these four-footed creatures could pass down this steep
declivity to the riverbed. Roosevelt asserted that they could. Then he
entered his tent to shave. When the shaving was half completed someone
shouted that the sheep were going down. Roosevelt rushed out, with a
towel around his throat and one side of his face white with lather.
He watched the sure-footed sheep making their descent with great
interest. Then he said: “I knew they could do it.”
While Roosevelt was on this trip in the Yellowstone he remarked:
“I heard a Bullock’s-oriole!”
“You may have heard one,” said a man familiar with the country, “but I
doubt it. Those birds won’t come for two weeks yet.”
“I caught two bird notes which could not be those of any bird except an
oriole,” the Colonel insisted.
“You may have the song twisted,” said another member of the party.
That evening at supper Roosevelt suddenly laid down his knife and fork,
exclaiming, “Look! Look!”
On a shrub before the window was a Bullock’s-oriole. This vindication
of his hearing pleased the Colonel immensely.
Burroughs, after visiting the Colonel at Sagamore Hill in 1907, wrote
that the appearance of a new warbler in the woods “seemed an event that
threw the affairs of state and the Presidential succession into the
background.” He told a political visitor at that time that it would be
impossible for him to discuss politics then as he wanted to talk and
hunt birds, and for the purpose he took his visitor with him.
“Fancy,” said Burroughs, “a President of the United States stalking
rapidly across bushy fields to the woods, eager as a boy and filled
with the one idea of showing to his visitors the black-throated green
warbler!”
Roosevelt told Burroughs that when he was President he would sometimes
go on bird excursions in the White House grounds. People passing would
stop and stare at him as he stood gazing up into the trees.
“No doubt they thought me insane,” he said.
“Yes,” added Mrs. Roosevelt, who was present, “and as I was always with
him, they no doubt thought that I was the nurse that had him in charge.”
Roosevelt’s effective war on “nature fakirs” could not have been
possible had he not known intimately the habits and nature of birds and
animals, and never was he found wanting. Roosevelt’s intense interest
in wild animals, it may be noted in passing, showed itself in his early
boyhood. Of the minister of his church he demanded to know the nature
of a “zeal.”
“What is a zeal?” repeated the puzzled parson.
“You read about him in the Psalms,” said Ted.
The minister picked up his Bible. There he found the answer: “For the
zeal of thine house hath eaten me up.”