I have deliberated a long time about coupling some of my sketches of
outdoor nature with a few chapters of a more purely literary character,
and thus confiding to my reader what absorbs and delights me inside my
four walls, as well as what pleases and engages me outside those walls;
especially since I have aimed to bring my outdoor spirit and method
within, and still to look upon my subject with the best naturalist's eye
I could command.
I hope, therefore, he will not be scared away when I boldly confront
him in the latter portions of my book with this name of strange portent,
Walt Whitman, for I assure him that in this misjudged man he may press
the strongest poetic pulse that has yet beaten in America, or perhaps
in modern times. Then, these chapters are a proper supplement or
continuation of my themes and their analogy in literature, because
in them we shall "follow out these lessons of the earth and air," and
behold their application to higher matters.
It is not an artificially graded path strewn with roses that invites us
in this part, but, let me hope, something better, a rugged trail through
the woods or along the beach where we shall now and then get a whiff of
natural air, or a glimpse of something to
"Make the wild blood start
In its mystic springs."
ESOPUS-ON-HUDSON, March, 1877.