Frontis portrait plate of Author with facsimile inscription, title page in red & black. Period 1/2 leather binding, raised and gilt bands, compartments gilt decorated with central devices, gilt title labels, marbled covers and end papers. Clean, tight, and sound. Interior contents display a pleasing age patina, paper uniformly gently age toned. Table of Contents includes: Birds and poets -- Touches of nature -- A bird medley -- April -- Spring poems -- Our rural divinity -- Before genius -- Before beauty -- Emerson -- The flight of the eagle.
“Indeed, when I go to the woods or the fields, or ascend to the hilltop, I do not seem to be gazing upon beauty at all, but to be breathing it like the air. I am not dazzled or astonished; I am in no hurry to look lest it be gone. I would not have the litter and debris removed, or the banks trimmed, or the ground painted. What I enjoy is commensurate with the earth and sky itself. It clings to the rocks and trees; it is kindred to the roughness and savagery; it rises from every tangle and chasm; it perches on the dry oak-stubs with the hawks and buzzards; the crows shed it from their wings and weave it into their nests of coarse sticks; the fox barks it, the cattle low it, and every mountain path leads to its haunts. I am not a spectator of, but a participator in it. It is not an adornment; its roots strike to the centre of the earth.” P. 175