A Man Who Made the World a Better Place

Originally my father read me the stories—time and time again, according to my own popular demand. "Dad, you missed a whole sentence!"

Whether he read me every one of the books, I don't know. Probably he did. Years later, I got hold of every one I could; and I'm sure I read them all, then. And years after that, I got hold of them again, and read them again.

Mr. Burgess was a wonderful man, and he gave his wonders, like presents, to children and to other thinking, feeling humans. In many respects, Thornton W. Burgess was a "Mr. Rogers" of an earlier day. He made people happy, and he did it with wisdom. The gifts he gave were all wisdom, packaged in various kinds of sensitivity. His "neighbourhood" was that of forest and stream.

Peter Rabbit could talk. Don't think that made Thornton unrealistic. Perhaps partly through his early influence on my life, I became a professional naturalist for many years with Parks Canada. I'm about sixty now, and (like a lot of people) I wake every morning to the city sounds of myriad bird calls and chirps and songs, every one of which I know as well as I know a friend's voice on the telephone. I suppose I know several hundred species by their voices. Birds fill my world, and give me joy and peace in troubled times.

When I reread Thornton W. Burgess' books, I discovered to my astonishment that he had known his animals and birds very, very well indeed. When he says that most crows migrated from a cold region, but a few stayed; when he says that (specifically) a Long-eared Owl usurped one of the crows' nests; when he describes the crows returning in the spring—it is all accurate. And a lot of his information must assuredly have been of his own learning, as his details are not in mainstream reading about bird behaviour.

In a time when bird-watchers shot so much of what they watched, Thornton powerfully suggests an ethic of living and letting live. He has to do some fancy dancing around his predator and prey species, but he manages very well indeed. It is not death he counsels his young audience against, but rather needless death and needless suffering. And he imparts a sense of wonder and respect—I believe, taken together, these qualities are what we call love—of living things.

Love, wisdom, knowledge, sensitivity. Such a rich man, who bestowed such rich gifts upon children lucky enough to have fathers like mine. Thank you, Dad, for reading me those stories, so very long ago; thank you, Thornton W. Burgess, for writing them.

Thank you for a wonderful post which reminded me of when my own father used to read me Mr. Burgess' delightful stories before bedtime. I didn't even realize these stories were on this site, but after reading your warm encomium of Burgess' books here I went and re-read Blackie the Crow's adventures while my own dear little pet bird dozed on my shoulder. I'll have to start making a regular habit of returning to these cherished childhood tales. :)

Thank you! And thank you, too, for leading me on a mysterious search for scattered Italian rhymes. I got only so far. (Haha! But my attempts proved too much for Google, which is likely still trying to translate.)

Seems to me there are strange coincidental occurrences that might be overlooked as nothing of importance at all, yet which suggest teensy little "signals" in our lives. At least, I don't personally pass them by. So I stopped and wondered when I read that Francesco Petrarca was born on my own birthday, though in 1304, and died exactly—precisely—seventy-one years later.

Maybe I should read Petrarch? I never have.

The lines are from the first poem of Petrarch's sonnet sequence, the Canzoniere, which is also referred to as the "Rime Sparse" or the scattered rhymes. Since you went to all that googling effort (and since you have a cosmic birthday connection with Petrarca) I thought I'd give you the full poem with an English translation (I couldn't tell from your post how well you know Italian):

Voi ch’ascoltate in rime sparse il suono
di quei sospiri ond’ io nudriva ‘l core
in sul mio primo giovenile errore,
quand’ era in parte altr’ uom da quell ch’I’sono:

del vario stile in ch’io piango et ragiono
fra le vane speranze e ‘l van dolore,
ove sia chi per prova intenda amore
spero trovar pietà, non che perdono.

Ma ben veggio or sì come al popol tutto
favola fui gran tempo, onde sovente
di me medesmo meco mi vergogno

et del mio vaneggiar vergogna è ‘l frutto,
e’l pentersi, e ‘l conoscer chiaramente
che quanto piace al mondo è breve sogno.

You who hear in scattered rhymes the sound of those sighs with
which I nourishdd my heart during my first youthful error, when
I was in part another man from what I am now:

For the varied style in which I weep and speak between vain
hopes and vain sorrow, where there is anyone who understands
love through experience, I hope to find pity, not only pardon.

But now I see well how for a long time I was the talk of the crowd,
for which often I am ashamed of myself within;

and of my raving, shame is the fruit, and repentance, and the
clear knowledge that whatever pleases in the world is a brief
dream.
--Translation Robert Durling

Poor Mr. Burgess, his thread is being hijacked by an Italian poet. :lol:

I was lost in Italy, enjoying that immensely, when I bumped very suddenly into your hijacking comment. That was very funny! And poor Petrarch, lamenting troubles enough, to be told he merits neither pity nor pardon, as his very lament is off topic.

Thank you so much. I shall read more. My knowledge of Italian is limited to a vague idea that it is not extremely dissimilar to Spanish. Um—I don't know Spanish, either. Nada.

Dear Grongle
I was having lunch with a group and the subject was polar bears. It came up that they have their cubs while asleep in the snow, (The ladies thought that was a great idea) and that they have two. I said one was a boy and one a girl and then I wondered if that was correct since I got a great deal of my nature information fron the Burgess books. To my surprise nobody had heard of Thornton W Burgess or his books and were very entertained by Buster Bears Twins, Grandfather Frog, Old Mr Toad, Sammy Jay, Little Joe Otter etc etc
Thought you would like to know that they had many of them in the Red Deer Library and I was given some for Christmas.