3 quotations linked to Pepacton by or associated with John Burroughs, with source notes, explanations and related topics.
Patient observation, curiosity, natural history, poetic perception, woods, birds, field discovery and the relation between observer and landscape.
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“"Watch and wait" is the naturalist's sign.”
Patient observation is presented as a working method: discovery often requires remaining attentive long enough for elusive natural behavior to become visible.
Source note: Pepacton. Burroughs writes “Watch and wait” after describing an observation that corrected a gap in his own natural-history knowledge; the phrase is practical field-observation advice in literary natural history.
“You cannot find what the poets find in the woods until you take the poet's heart to the woods.”
Perception depends partly on the observer: poetic meaning in nature emerges when imagination and feeling participate alongside literal observation.
Source note: Pepacton, discussion of poetic interpretation of nature. Burroughs contrasts objective natural-history observation with the poet’s subjective idealization, using Shelley and Keats as examples.
“There is always a new page to be turned in natural history, if one is sufficiently on the alert.”
Close observation keeps natural history open-ended because alert attention can reveal behavior and relationships that familiar surroundings had previously concealed.
Source note: Pepacton, natural-history essay; Project Gutenberg #7441. Burroughs immediately illustrates the claim with an unexpected observation of eagles and later repeats the naturalist’s maxim “Watch and wait.”