Read Online The Wilderness Warrior: Theodore Roosevelt and the Crusade for America by Douglas Brinkley - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Douglas Brinkley
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listening to the roar of a waterfall in Hastings where herons congregated, Roosevelt observed nature like a budding biologist. Even when he was touring museums or cathedrals, his eyes immediately darted toward heraldic shields with bears and bulls, statues of wooden dogs, art showing centaurs, and any scrawny stray cats that prowled territorially around the grounds as if they owned the property. Vivid descriptions of ornery mules and trotting horses populated the diaries. In “My Journal in Switzerland,” for example, Roosevelt wrote of climbing the Alps around Mont Blanc and trying to trap animals to learn “natural history from nature.” 50 Although he was bored by the manicured European botanical gardens, Roosevelt marveled on seeing his first glacier, which he anointed “Mother of Ice.” 51 While in Lugano, he was given two chameleons by the family’s carriage driver to keep as pets; he was intrigued by their uncanny ability to change colors with such ease. 52
By September 1869 the Roosevelts had made their way to southern Italy. Unfortunately, his asthmatic condition was making Theodore miserable, discoloring his face, forcing him to wheeze for air, his chest heaving and filled with mucus. Clearing his throat was necessary so often that it became a tic. Often he had to sleep sitting up in order to breathe. In his diary he cast horrific spells as awful attacks of “the asmer.” There was no effective treatment available in the mid-nineteenth century, so he suffered, gasping for air whenever flare-ups occurred. After one sick,asthmatic afternoon, bored and bedridden, Theodore suddenly perked up at the sight of a performing canine. “In the evening a Lady came with a little dog who is the cuningest litleest fellow in the world,” he said; “he had a great many tricke letting you kiss its hand whipping you standing on its hind legs and having a dress on.” 53
Although the Roosevelts traveled through Europe in high style, young Theodore missed his tiny museum back on Twentieth Street in New York City. Discovering English birds’ nests and French snakeskins on walks, he pocketed them to haul back home for his expansive collection. Not wanting to let his natural history training lapse, he read Wood and Reid and Baird every chance he got. In Dresden, Germany, he ventured by himself to the Royal Zoological Museum, a venerable institution founded in 1728. Housing more than 100 animals, the museum had a particularly fine collection of reptiles and fishes. The main draw at the museum, however, was the intricate glass models of sea anemones precisely blown by the artist Leopold Blaschka. 54
But it was the aquarium in Berlin that really got Roosevelt’s blood running, bringing him up close to live perched ravens, rare ducks, and feisty cormorants. “We saw birds in there nests on trees and anemonese and snakes and lizards,” he recorded on October 27. “We had a walk and played chamois and after goats which I a grizzely bear tried to eat.” 55 Tellingly, even the Berlin aquarium left him missing the United States. “Perhaps when I’mm 14 I’ll go to Minnesota,” he wrote, dreaming of bird-watching in the Red River valley; “hip, hip, hurrah’hhh!” 56 In these diaries are the beginnings of Roosevelt’s imagining America as a wilderness, a mosaic of longleaf pine woods and forested wetlands, of large floodplains and swamps and lakes. Europe may have had prairies, but America had dry and wet prairies. To Roosevelt America had now risen in stature as a true wilderness laboratory—Europe, he sensed, was spent.
Whenever young Theodore saw animals neglected or abused, his diaries reflect his outrage. The sight of a puppy run over in a Parisian gutter sent him into a deep funk. He lamented how cows and goats were mistreated by peasants, and was upset at seeing horses suffer from whips, bits, epilepsy, frostbite, and heat exhaustion. On December 7, in Nice, he recorded how atrociously a French peasant treated
By September 1869 the Roosevelts had made their way to southern Italy. Unfortunately, his asthmatic condition was making Theodore miserable, discoloring his face, forcing him to wheeze for air, his chest heaving and filled with mucus. Clearing his throat was necessary so often that it became a tic. Often he had to sleep sitting up in order to breathe. In his diary he cast horrific spells as awful attacks of “the asmer.” There was no effective treatment available in the mid-nineteenth century, so he suffered, gasping for air whenever flare-ups occurred. After one sick,asthmatic afternoon, bored and bedridden, Theodore suddenly perked up at the sight of a performing canine. “In the evening a Lady came with a little dog who is the cuningest litleest fellow in the world,” he said; “he had a great many tricke letting you kiss its hand whipping you standing on its hind legs and having a dress on.” 53
Although the Roosevelts traveled through Europe in high style, young Theodore missed his tiny museum back on Twentieth Street in New York City. Discovering English birds’ nests and French snakeskins on walks, he pocketed them to haul back home for his expansive collection. Not wanting to let his natural history training lapse, he read Wood and Reid and Baird every chance he got. In Dresden, Germany, he ventured by himself to the Royal Zoological Museum, a venerable institution founded in 1728. Housing more than 100 animals, the museum had a particularly fine collection of reptiles and fishes. The main draw at the museum, however, was the intricate glass models of sea anemones precisely blown by the artist Leopold Blaschka. 54
But it was the aquarium in Berlin that really got Roosevelt’s blood running, bringing him up close to live perched ravens, rare ducks, and feisty cormorants. “We saw birds in there nests on trees and anemonese and snakes and lizards,” he recorded on October 27. “We had a walk and played chamois and after goats which I a grizzely bear tried to eat.” 55 Tellingly, even the Berlin aquarium left him missing the United States. “Perhaps when I’mm 14 I’ll go to Minnesota,” he wrote, dreaming of bird-watching in the Red River valley; “hip, hip, hurrah’hhh!” 56 In these diaries are the beginnings of Roosevelt’s imagining America as a wilderness, a mosaic of longleaf pine woods and forested wetlands, of large floodplains and swamps and lakes. Europe may have had prairies, but America had dry and wet prairies. To Roosevelt America had now risen in stature as a true wilderness laboratory—Europe, he sensed, was spent.
Whenever young Theodore saw animals neglected or abused, his diaries reflect his outrage. The sight of a puppy run over in a Parisian gutter sent him into a deep funk. He lamented how cows and goats were mistreated by peasants, and was upset at seeing horses suffer from whips, bits, epilepsy, frostbite, and heat exhaustion. On December 7, in Nice, he recorded how atrociously a French peasant treated
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