THE EULOGY OF 
 
 RICHARD JEFFERIES 
 
 BY 
 
 WALTER BESANT 
 
 ; I hearing got, who had but ears, 
 
 And sight, who had but eyes before ; 
 I moments live, who lived but years, 
 And truth discern, who knew but learning's lore. 
 
 THOREAU. 
 
 IV I 'III A PORTRAIT 
 
 ILontton 
 CHATTO & WINDUS, PICCADILLY 
 
 1888 
 
 [All rights reserved'] 
 
TO THE 
 
 WIDOW AND THE TWO CHILDREN 
 
 OF 
 
 RICHARD JEFFERIES 
 
 I DEDICATE THIS MEMORIAL, IN THE EARNEST HOPE 
 
 THAT IT MAY NOT BE FOUND WHOLLY 
 
 UNWORTHY OF ITS SUBJECT. 
 
 3G0707 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 IN the body of this work I have sufficiently 
 explained the reasons why I was entrusted 
 with the task of writing this memoir of Richard 
 Jefferies. I have only here to express my 
 thanks, first to the publishers, who have given 
 permission to quote from books by Jefferies 
 issued by them, namely : Messrs. Cassell and 
 Co., Messrs. Chapman and Hall, Messrs. 
 Longman and Co., Messrs. Sampson Low and 
 Co., Messrs. Smith and Elder, and Messrs. 
 Tinsley Brothers, and next, to all those who 
 have entrusted me with letters written by 
 Jefferies, and have given permission to use 
 them. These are : Mrs. Harrild, of Sydenham, 
 
vi PREFACE. 
 
 Mr. Charles Longman, Mr. J. W. North, and 
 Mr. C. P. Scott. I have also been provided 
 with the note-books filled with Jefferies' 
 notes made in the fields. These have enabled 
 me to understand, and, I hope, to convey to 
 others some understanding of, the writer's 
 methods. I call this book the " Eulogy " of 
 Richard Jefferies, because, in very truth, I 
 can find nothing but admiration, pure and 
 unalloyed, for that later work of his, on 
 which will rest his fame and his abiding 
 memory. 
 
 W. B. 
 
 UNITED UNIVERSITY CLUB, 
 September, 1888. 
 
CONTENTS, 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 ' CO ATE FARM . 1 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 SIXTEEN TO TWENTY / / . - . ' . 49 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 LETTERS FROM 1866 TO 1872 . . . 66 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 GLEAMS OF LIGHT. . -. . . 96 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 FIRST YEARS OF SUCCESS . , . . . 108 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 FICTION, EARLY AND LATE 145 
 
viii CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 IN FULL CAREER . . . . . 163 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE LONGMAN LETTERS . . . .193 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE COUNTRY LIFE . _. . .214 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 " THE STORY OF MY HEART " . . 269 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 THE CHILD WANDERS IN THE WOOD . .301 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 CONCLUSION 327 
 
 APPENDIX I. 
 
 LIST OF JEFFERIES' WORKS . . '. 366 
 
 APPENDIX II. 
 
 LIST OF PAPERS STILL UNPUBLISHED . . 368 
 
 APPENDIX III. 
 
 LETTER TO THE "TIMES," NOVEMBER, 1872 . 370 
 
THE 
 
 EULOGY 
 
 OF 
 
 RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 CHAPTEE I. 
 
 COATE FAKM. 
 
 "Go," said the Voice which dismisses the 
 soul on its way to inhabit an earthly frame. 
 " Go ; thy lot shall be to speak of trees, from 
 the cedar even unto the hyssop that springeth 
 out of the wall ; and of beasts also, and of 
 fowls, and of fishes. All thy ways shall be 
 ordered for thee, so that thou shalt learn to 
 speak of these things as no man ever spoke 
 before, Thou shalt rise into great honour 
 among men. Many shall love to hear thy 
 
 1 
 
- V -. 
 
 . 
 2 TH : E EULOGY O$' RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 voice above all the voices of those who speak. 
 This is a great gift. Thou shalt also enjoy the 
 tender love of wife and children. Yet the 
 things which men most desire riches, rank, 
 independence, ease, health, and long life these 
 are denied to thee. Thou shalt be always 
 poor ; thou shalt live in humble places ; the 
 goad of necessity shall continually prick thee 
 to work when thou wouldst meditate ; to 
 write when thou wouldst walk forth to 
 observe. Thou shalt never be able to sit 
 down to rest ; thou shalt be afflicted with 
 grievous plaguy diseases ; and thou shalt die 
 when little more than half the allotted life of 
 man is past. Go, therefore. Be happy with 
 what is given, and lament not over what is 
 denied." 
 
 Eichard JefTeries christened John Eichard, 
 but he was always called by his second name 
 was born on November 6, 1848, at the farm- 
 house of Coate you may pronounce it, if you 
 please, in Wiltshire fashion Caute. The house 
 stands on the road from Swindon to Marl- 
 borough, about two miles and a half from the 
 
CO ATE FARM. 3 
 
 former place. It has now lost its old picturesque- 
 ness, because the great heavy thatch which 
 formerly served for roof has been removed and 
 replaced by slates. I know not whether any 
 gain in comfort has been achieved by this 
 change, but the effect to outward view has 
 been to reduce what was once a beautiful old 
 house to meanness. 
 
 It consists of two rooms on the ground- 
 floor, four on the first floor, and two large 
 garrets in the roof, one of which, as we shall see, 
 has memorable associations. The keeping- 
 room of the family is remarkable for its large 
 square window, built out so as to afford a 
 delightful retreat for reading or working in 
 the summer, or whenever it is not too cold to 
 sit away from the fireplace. The other room, 
 called, I believe, the best parlour, is larger, 
 but it lacks the square window. In the days 
 when the Jefferies family lived here it seems 
 to have been used as a kind of store-room or 
 lumber-room. At the back of the house is a 
 kitchen belonging to a much older house ; it 
 is a low room built solidly of stone with 
 timber rafters. 
 
 12 
 
4 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 Beside the kitchen is a large modern room, 
 which was used in Kichard's childhood as a 
 chapel of ease, in which service was read 
 every Sunday for the hamlet of Coate. 
 
 Between the house and the road is a small 
 flower-garden ; at the side of the house is a 
 vegetable-garden, with two or three fruit-trees, 
 and beyond this an orchard. On the other 
 side of the house are the farm buildings. 
 There seems to be little traffic up and down 
 the road, and the hamlet consists of nothing 
 more than half a dozen labourers' cottages. 
 
 "I remember," writes one who knew him 
 in boyhood, " every little detail of the house and 
 grounds, even to the delicious scent of the 
 musk underneath the old bay window " it 
 still springs up afresh every summer between 
 the cobble stones " the ' grind-stone ' apple, 
 the splendid egg-plum which drooped over 
 the roof, the little Siberian crabs, the damsons 
 I could plant each spot with its own par- 
 ticular tree the drooping willow, the swing, 
 the quaint little arbour, the fuchsia-bushes, 
 the hedge walks, the little arched gate leading 
 into the road, the delightful scent under the 
 
CO ATE FARM. 5 
 
 limes, the little bench by the ha-ha looking 
 towards Swindon and the setting sun. I am 
 actually crying over these delicious memories 
 of my childhood; if ever I loved a spot of 
 this earth, it was Coate House. The scent of 
 the sweet-briar takes me there in a moment ; 
 the walnut-trees you recollect, and the old 
 wooden pump, where the villagers came for 
 water ; the hazel copse that my uncle 
 planted; the gateway that led to the reservoir; 
 the sitting-room, with its delightful square 
 window; the porch, where the swallows used to 
 build year after year ; and the kitchen, with 
 its wide hearth and dark window." 
 
 In " Amaryllis at the Fair " the scene is 
 laid at Coate Farm. But, indeed, as we 
 shall see, Coate was never absent from 
 Jefferies' mind for long. 
 
 Coate is not, I believe, a large farm. It 
 had, however, been in the possession of the 
 family for many generations. Once twice 
 it passed out of their hands, and was after- 
 wards recovered. It was finally lost about 
 twelve years ago. To belong to an old 
 English yeoman stock is, perhaps, good enough 
 
6 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 ancestry for anyone, though not, certainly, 
 " showy." Eichard JefFeries was a veritable 
 son of the soil : not descended from those who 
 have nothing to show but long centuries of 
 servitude, but with a long line behind him of 
 independent farmers occupying their own 
 land. Field and forest lore were therefore his 
 by right of inheritance. 
 
 As for the country round about Coate, I 
 suppose there is no district in the world that 
 has been more minutely examined, explored, 
 and described. Jefferies knew every inch of 
 ground, every tree, every hedge. The land 
 which lies in a circle of ten miles' radius, the 
 centre of which is Coate Farm-house, belongs 
 to the writings of Jefferies. He lived else- 
 where, but mostly he wrote of Coate. The 
 " Gamekeeper at Home," the " Amateur 
 Poacher," " Wild Life in a Southern County," 
 " Round about a Great Estate," " Hodge and 
 his Masters," are all written of this small bit 
 of Wiltshire. Nay, in " Wood Magic," in 
 " Amaryllis at the Fair," in " Green Feme 
 Farm," and in "Bevis," we are still either at 
 Coate Farm itself or on the hills around. 
 
CO ATE FARM. 7 
 
 It is a country of downs. Two of them, 
 within sight of the farmhouse, are covered 
 with the grassy mounds and trenches of 
 ancient forts or " castles." There are planta- 
 tions here and there, and coppices, but the 
 general aspect of the country is treeless ; it is 
 also a dry country. In winter there are water- 
 courses which in summer are dry ; yet it is 
 not without brooks. Jefferies shows (" Wild 
 Life in a Southern County," p. 29) that in 
 ancient and prehistoric time the whole country 
 must have been covered with forests, of which 
 the most important survival is what is now 
 called Ashbourne Chase. For one who loved 
 solitude and wanderings among the hills, there 
 could be hardly any part of England more 
 delightful. Within a reasonable walk from 
 Coate are Barbury Hill, Liddington Hill, and 
 Ashbourne Chase ; there are downs extending 
 as far as Marlborough, over which a man may 
 walk all day long and meet no one. It is a 
 country, moreover, full of ancient monuments; 
 besides the strongholds of Liddington and 
 Barbury, there are everywhere tumuli, 
 barrows, cromlechs, and stone circles. Way- 
 
8 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 land Smith's Forge is within a walk to the 
 east ; another walk, somewhat longer, takes 
 you to Avebury, to Wan's Dyke, to the Grey 
 Wethers of Marlborough, or the ancient forest 
 of Savernake. There are ancient memories or 
 whispers of old wars and prehistoric battles 
 about this country. At Barbury the Britons 
 made a final stand against the Saxons, and 
 were defeated with great slaughter. Wan- 
 borough, now a village, was then an important 
 centre where four Roman roads met, so that 
 the chieftain or king who had his seat at 
 Wanborough could communicate rapidly, and 
 call up forces from Sarum, Silchester, Win- 
 chester, and the Chilterns. All these things 
 speak nothing to a boy who is careless and 
 incurious. But Richard JefFeries was a boy 
 curious and inquiring. He had, besides, 
 friends who directed his attention to the 
 meaning of the ancient monuments within his 
 reach, and taught him something of the dim 
 and shadowy history of the people who built 
 them. He loved to talk and think of them ; 
 in after-years he wrote a book " After 
 London " which was inspired by these early 
 
CO ATE FARM. 9 
 
 meditations upon prehistoric Britain. He 
 himself discovered it is an archaeological find 
 of very considerable importance how the 
 garrisons of these hill-top forts provided them- 
 selves with water. And as for his special 
 study of creatures and their ways, the wild- 
 ness of the country is highly favourable, both 
 to their preservation and to opportunities for 
 study. Perhaps no other part of England was 
 better for the development of his genius than 
 the Wiltshire Downs. Do you want to catch 
 the feeling of the air upon these downs ? 
 Eemember the words which begin " Wild 
 Life in a Southern County." 
 
 " The most commanding down is crowned 
 with the grassy mould and trenches of an 
 ancient earthwork, from whence there is a 
 noble view of hill and plain. The inner slope 
 of the green fosse is inclined at an angle 
 pleasant to recline on, with the head just below 
 the edge, in the summer sunshine. A faint 
 sound as of a sea heard in a dream a sibilant 
 ' sish, sish ' passes along outside, dying away 
 and coming again as a fresh wave of the wind 
 
io THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 rushes through the bennets and the dry grass. 
 There is the happy hum of bees who love the 
 hills as they speed by laden with their golden 
 harvest, a drowsy warmth, and the delicious 
 odour of wild thyme. Behind the fosse sinks, 
 and the rampart rises high and steep two 
 butterflies are wheeling in uncertain flight over 
 the summit. It is only necessary to raise the 
 head a little way, and the cool breeze refreshes 
 the cheek cool at this height while the plains 
 beneath glow under the heat." 
 
 All day long the trains from Devon, Corn- 
 wall, Somerset and South "Wales, from Exeter, 
 Bristol, Bath, Gloucester, and Oxford, run into 
 Swindon and stop there for ten minutes every 
 one of them while the passengers get out and 
 crowd into the refreshment rooms. 
 
 Swindon to all these travellers is nothing at 
 all but a refreshment-room. It has no other 
 association nobody takes a ticket to Swindon 
 any more than to Crewe it is the station 
 where people have ten minutes allowed for 
 eating. As for any village, or town, of Swin- 
 don, nobody has ever inquired whether there 
 
CO ATE FARM. 11 
 
 be such a place. Swindon is a luncheon-bar ; 
 that is all. There is, however, more than a 
 refreshment-room at Swindon. First, there 
 has grown up around the station a new town 
 of twenty thousand people, all employes of 
 the Great Western Eailway, all engaged upon 
 the works of the company. This is not by 
 any means a beautiful town, but it is not 
 squalid ; on the contrary, it is clean, and looks 
 prosperous and contented, with fewer public- 
 houses (but here one may be mistaken) than 
 are generally found. It is an industrial city 
 a city of the employed skilled artisans, skilled 
 engineers, blacksmiths, foremen, and clerks. 
 A mile south of this new town but there are 
 houses nearly all the way the old Swindon 
 stands upon a hill, occupying, most likely, the 
 site of a British fortress, such as that of Lid- 
 dington or Barbury. It is a market town of 
 six or eight thousand people. Formerly there 
 was a settlement of Dutch in the place con- 
 nected with the wool trade. They have long 
 since gone, but the houses which they built 
 picturesque old houses presenting two gables 
 to the street remained after them. Of these 
 
12 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 nearly all are now pulled down, so that there 
 is little but red brick to look upon. In fact, 
 it would be difficult to find a town more 
 devoid of beauty. They have pulled down the 
 old church, except the chancel : there was 
 once an old mill Jefferies' grandfather was 
 the tenant. That is also pulled down, and 
 there is a kind of square or place where there 
 is the corn exchange : I think that there is 
 nothing else to see. 
 
 On market-day, however, the town is full of 
 crowd and bustle ; at the Goddard Arms you 
 can choose between a hot dinner upstairs and 
 a cold lunch downstairs, and you will find both 
 rooms filled with men who know each other 
 and are interested in lambing and other bucolic 
 matters. The streets are filled with drivers, 
 sheep, and cattle ; there is a horse market ; in 
 the corn market the farmers, slow of speech, 
 carry their sample-bags in their hands ; the 
 carter, whip in hand, stands about on the kerb- 
 stone ; but in spite of the commotion no one 
 is in a hurry. It is the crowd alone which 
 gives the feeling of busy life. 
 
 Looking from Swindon Hill, south and east 
 
CO ATE FARM. 13 
 
 and west, there stretches away the great ex- 
 panse of downs which nobody ever seems to 
 visit ; the treasure-land of monuments built by 
 a people passed away not our ancestors at all. 
 This is the country over which the feet of 
 Eichard Jefferies loved to roam, never weary 
 of their wandering. On the slopes of these 
 green hills he has measured the ramparts of 
 the ancient fortress ; lying on the turf, he has 
 watched the hawk in the air ; among these 
 fields he has sat for hours motionless and 
 patient, until the creatures thought him a 
 statue and played their pranks before him 
 without fear. In these hedges he has peered 
 and searched and watched ; in these woods and 
 in these fields and on these hillsides he has 
 seen in a single evening's walk more things of 
 wonder and beauty than one of us poor pur- 
 blind city creatures can discern in the whole of 
 the six weeks which we yearly give up to 
 Nature and to fresh air. This corner of Eng- 
 land must be renamed. As Yorkshire hath its 
 Craven, its Cleveland, its Eichmond, and its 
 Holderness, so Wiltshire shall have its . 
 JefFeries-land, lying in an irregular oval on 
 
14 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 whose circumference stand Swindon, Barbury, 
 Liddington, Ashbourne Chase and Wan- 
 borough. 
 
 Eichard Jefferies was the second of five chil- 
 dren, three sons and two daughters. The eldest 
 child, a daughter, was killed by a runaway 
 horse at the age of five. The Swindon people, 
 who are reported to be indifferent to the works 
 of their native author, remember his family 
 very well. They seem to have possessed quali- 
 ties or eccentricities which cause them to be 
 remembered. His grandfather, for instance, 
 who is without doubt the model for old Iden 
 in "Amaryllis," was at the same time a miller 
 and a confectioner. The mill stood near the 
 west end of the old church ; both mill and 
 church are now pulled down. It was worked 
 for the tenant by his brother, a man still more 
 eccentric than the miller. The family seems 
 to have inherited, from father to son, a dis- 
 position of reserve, a love of solitude, and a 
 habit of thinking for themselves. No grega- 
 rious man, no man who loved to sit among his 
 fellows, could possibly have written even the 
 shortest of Jefferies' papers. 
 
CO ATE FARM. 15 
 
 The household at Coate has been partly 
 but only partly described in " Amaryllis at 
 the Fair." It consisted of his parents, him- 
 self, his next brother, a year younger than 
 himself, and a brother and sister much younger. 
 Farmer Iden, in " Amaryllis," is, in many 
 characteristics, a portrait of his father. Truly, 
 it is not a portrait to shame any man ; and 
 though the lines are strongly drawn, one hopes 
 that the original, who is still living, was not 
 offended at a picture so striking and so ori- 
 ginal. Jefferies has drawn for us the figure 
 of a man full of wisdom and thought, who 
 speaks now in broad Wiltshire and now in 
 clear, good English ; one who meditates aloud ; 
 one who roams about his fields watching and 
 remembering ; one who brings to the planting 
 of potatoes as much thought and care as if he 
 were writing an immortal poem ; yet an un- 
 practical and unsuccessful man, who goes 
 steadily and surely down-hill while those who 
 have not a tenth part of his wisdom and 
 ability climb upwards. A novelist, however, 
 draws his portraits as best suits his purpose ; 
 he arranges the lights to fall on this feature 
 
16 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 or on that ; he conceals some things and ex- 
 aggerates others, so that even with the picture 
 of Farmer Iden before us, it would be rash to 
 conclude that we know the elder Jefferies. 
 Some of the pictures, however, must be surely 
 drawn from the life. For instance, that of the 
 farmer planting his potatoes : 
 
 11 Under the wall was a large patch recently 
 dug, beside the patch a grass path, and on the 
 path a wheelbarrow. A man was busy putting 
 in potatoes ; he wore the raggedest coat ever 
 seen on a respectable back. As the wind 
 lifted the tails it was apparent that the lining 
 was loose and only hung by threads, the cuffs 
 were worn through, there was a hole beneath 
 each arm, and on each shoulder the nap of the 
 cloth was gone ; the colour, which had once 
 been gray, was now a mixture of several soils 
 and numerous kinds of grit. The hat he had 
 on was no better ; it might have been made of 
 some hard pasteboard, it was so bare. 
 
 " The way in which he was planting potatoes 
 was wonderful ; every potato was placed at 
 exactly the right distance apart, and a hole 
 
CO ATE FARM. 17 
 
 made for it in the general trench ; before it 
 was set it was looked at and turned over, and 
 the thumb rubbed against it to be sure that it 
 was sound, and when finally put in, a little 
 mould was delicately adjusted round to keep 
 it in its right position till the whole row was 
 buried. He carried the potatoes in his coat 
 pocket those, that is, for the row and took 
 them out one by one ; had he been planting 
 his own children he could not have been more 
 careful. The science, the skill, and the experi- 
 ence brought to this potato -planting you would 
 hardly credit ; for all this care was founded 
 upon observation, and arose from very large 
 abilities on the part of the planter, though di- 
 rected to so humble a purpose at that moment." 
 
 This book also contains certain references to 
 past family history which show that there had 
 been changes and chances with losses and 
 gains. They may be guessed from the following : 
 
 " ' The daffodil was your great-uncle's fa- 
 vourite flower.' 
 
 " ' Richard V asked Amaryllis. 
 
 " ' Richard,' repeated Iden. And Amaryllis, 
 
 2 
 
i8 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 noting how handsome her father's intellectual 
 face looked, wandered in her mind from the 
 flower as he talked, and marvelled how he 
 could be so rough sometimes, arid why he 
 talked like the labourers, and wore a ragged 
 coat he who was so full of wisdom in his 
 other moods, and spoke, and thought, and 
 indeed acted as a perfect gentleman. 
 
 " ' Eichard's favourite flower,' he went on. 
 ' He brought the daffodils down from Luckett's; 
 every one in the garden came from there. He 
 was always reading poetry, and writing, and 
 sketching, and yet he was such a capital man 
 of business ; no one could understand that. 
 He built the mill, and saved heaps of money ; 
 he bought back the old place at Luckett's, 
 which belonged to us before Queen Elizabeth's 
 days ; indeed, he very nearly made up the 
 fortunes Nicholas and the rest of them got rid 
 of. He was, indeed, a man. And now it is 
 all going again faster than he made it.' ' 
 
 Everybody knows the Dutch picture of the 
 dinner at the farm the description of the leg of 
 mutton. Was ever leg of mutton thus glorified ? 
 
CO ATE FARM. 19 
 
 "That day they had a leg of mutton a 
 special occasion a joint to be looked on 
 reverently. Mr. Iden had walked into the 
 town to choose it himself some days pre- 
 viously, and brought it home on foot in a flag 
 basket. The butcher would have sent it, and 
 if not, there were men on the farm who could 
 have fetched it, but it was much too important 
 to be left to a second person. No one could 
 do it right but Mr. Iden himself. There was 
 a good deal of reason in this personal ca.re of 
 the meat, for it is a certain fact that unless 
 you do look after such things yourself, and 
 that persistently, too, you never get it first- 
 rate. For this cause people in grand villas 
 scarcely ever have anything worth eating on 
 their tables. Their household expenses reach 
 thousands yearly, and yet they rarely have 
 anything eatable, and their dinner- tables can 
 never show meat, vegetables, or fruit equal to 
 Mr. Iden's. The meat was dark-brown, as 
 mutton should be, for if it is the least bit 
 white it is sure to be poor ; the grain was 
 short, and ate like bread and butter, firm, and, 
 yet almost crumbling to the touch ; it was full 
 
 22 
 
20 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFF ERIE S. 
 
 of juicy red gravy, and cut pleasantly, the 
 knife went through it nicely ; you can tell 
 good meat directly you touch it with the knife. 
 It was cooked to a turn, and had been done at 
 a wood fire on a hearth ; no oven taste, no 
 taint of coal gas or carbon ; the pure flame of 
 wood had browned it. Such emanations as 
 there may be from burning logs are odorous of 
 the woodland, of the sunshine, of the fields and 
 fresh air ; the wood simply gives out as it 
 burns the sweetness it has imbibed through its 
 leaves from the atmosphere which floats above 
 grass and flowers. Essences of this order, if 
 they do penetrate the fibres of the meat, add 
 to its flavour a delicate aroma. Grass-fed 
 meat, cooked at a wood fire, for me." 
 
 After the dinner, the great strong man with 
 the massive head, who can never make any- 
 thing succeed, sits down to sleep alone beside 
 the fire, his head leaning where for thirty 
 years it had daily leaned, against the wainscot, 
 so that there was now a round spot upon it, 
 completely devoid of varnish. 
 
 " That panel was in effect a cross on which 
 
CO ATE FARM. 21 
 
 a heart had been tortured for the third of a 
 century, that is, for the space of time allotted 
 to a generation. 
 
 " That mark upon the panel had still a 
 further meaning; it represented the unhappi- 
 ness, the misfortunes, the Nemesis of two 
 hundred years. This family of Idens had 
 endured already two hundred years of unhap- 
 piness and discordance for no original fault of 
 theirs, simply because they had once been for- 
 tunate of old time, and therefore they had to 
 work out that hour of sunshine to the utmost 
 depths of shadow. 
 
 "The panel of the wainscot upon which 
 that mark had been worn was in effect a cross 
 upon which a human heart had been tortured 
 and thought can, indeed, torture for a 
 third of a century. For Iden had learned to 
 know himself, and despaired." 
 
 Then the man falls asleep, and Amaryllis 
 steals in on tiptoe to find a book. Then the 
 wife, with a shawl round her shoulders, creeps 
 outside the house and looks in at the window 
 angry with her unpractical husband. 
 
22 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 " Slight sounds, faint rustlings, began to be 
 audible among the cinders in the fender. The 
 dry cinders were pushed about by something 
 passing between them. After a while a brown 
 mouse peered out at the end of the fender 
 under Iden's chair, looked round a moment, 
 and went back to the grate. In a minute he 
 came again, and ventured somewhat farther 
 across the width of the white hearthstone to 
 the verge of the carpet. This advance was 
 made step by step, but on reaching the carpet 
 the mouse rushed home to cover in one run 
 like children at ' touch wood,' going out from 
 a place of safety very cautiously, returning 
 swiftly. The next time another mouse fol- 
 lowed, and a third appeared at the other end 
 of the fender. By degrees they got under the 
 table, and helped themselves to the crumbs ; 
 one mounted a chair and reached the cloth, 
 but soon descended, afraid to stay there. Five 
 or six mice were now busy at their dinner. 
 
 " The sleeping man was as still and quiet as 
 if carved. 
 
 " A mouse came to the foot, clad in a great 
 rusty-hued iron-shod boot the foot that 
 
CO ATE FARM. 23 
 
 rested on the fender, for he had crossed his 
 knees. His ragged and dingy trouser, full of 
 March dust, and earth-stained by labour, was 
 drawn up somewhat higher than the boot. It 
 took the mouse several trials to reach the 
 trouser, but he succeeded, and audaciously 
 mounted to Iden's knee. Another quickly 
 followed, and there the pair of them feasted 
 on the crumbs of bread and cheese caught in 
 the folds of his trousers. 
 
 " One great brown hand was in his pocket, 
 close to them a mighty hand, beside which 
 they were pigmies indeed in the land of the 
 giants. What would have been the value of 
 their lives between a finger and thumb that 
 could crack a ripe and strong-shelled walnut ? 
 
 " The size the mass the weight of his 
 hand alone was as a hill overshadowing 
 them ; his broad frame like the Alps ; his 
 head high above as a vast rock that overhung 
 the valley. 
 
 " His thumb-nail widened by labour with 
 spade and axe his thumb-nail would have 
 covered either of the tiny creatures as his 
 shield covered Ajax. 
 
24 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 " Yet the little things fed in perfect con- 
 fidence. He was so still, so very still quies- 
 cent they feared him no more than they did 
 the wall ; they could not hear his breathing. 
 
 " Had they been gifted with human intelli- 
 gence, that very fact would have excited their 
 suspicions. Why so very, very still ? Strong 
 men, wearied by work, do not sleep quietly ; 
 they breathe heavily. Even in firm sleep we 
 move a little now and then, a limb trembles, a 
 muscle quivers, or stretches itself. 
 
 " But Iden was so still it was evident he 
 was really wide awake and restraining his 
 breath, and exercising conscious command 
 over his muscles, that this scene might pro- 
 ceed undisturbed. 
 
 " Now the strangeness of the thing was in 
 this way : Iden set traps for mice in the cellar 
 and the larder, and slew them there without 
 mercy. He picked up the trap, swung it 
 round, opening the door at the same instant, 
 and the wretched captive was dashed to death 
 upon the stone flags of the floor. So he hated 
 them and persecuted them in one place, and 
 fed them in another. 
 
CO ATE FARM. 25 
 
 " From the merest thin slit, as it were, 
 between his eyelids, Iden watched the mice 
 feed and run about his knees till, having 
 eaten every crumb, they descended his leg to 
 the floor." 
 
 This portrait is not true in all its details. 
 For instance, the elder Jefferies had small 
 and shapely hands and feet not the massive 
 hands described in " Amaryllis." 
 
 Another slighter portrait of his father is 
 found in " After London." It is that of the 
 Baron : 
 
 " As he pointed to the tree above, the mus- 
 cles, as the limb moved, displayed themselves 
 in knots, at which the courtier himself could 
 not refrain from, glancing. Those mighty 
 arms, had they clasped him about the waist, 
 could have crushed his bending ribs. The 
 heaviest blow that he could have struck upon 
 that broad chest would have produced no 
 more effect than a hollow sound ; it would not 
 even have shaken that powerful frame. 
 
 "He felt the steel blue eyes, bright as the 
 sky of midsummer, glance into his very mind. 
 
26 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 The high forehead bare, for the Baron had his 
 hat in his hand, mocked at him in its humility. 
 The Baron bared his head in honour of the 
 courtier's office and the Prince who had sent 
 him. The beard, though streaked with white, 
 spoke little of age ; it rather indicated an 
 abundant, a luxuriant vitality." 
 
 And I have before me a letter which con- 
 tains the following passage concerning the 
 elder Jefferies : 
 
 " The garden, the orchard, the hedges of 
 the fields were always his chief delight ; he 
 had planted many a tree round and about his 
 farm. Not a single bird that flew but he 
 knew, and could tell its history ; if you walked 
 with him, as Dick often did, and as I have 
 occasionally done, through the fields, and 
 heard him expatiate quietly enough on the 
 trees and flowers, you would not be surprised 
 at the turn taken by his son's genius." 
 
 Thus, then, the boy was born ; in an ancient 
 farmhouse beautiful to look upon, with beau- 
 tiful fields and gardens round it ; in the midst 
 
CO ATE FARM. 27 
 
 of a most singular and interesting country, 
 wilder than any other part of England except 
 the Peak and Dartmoor ; encouraged by his 
 father to observe and to remember ; taught by 
 him to read the Book of Nature. What better 
 beginning could the boy have had? There 
 wanted but one thing to complete his happi- 
 ness a little more ease as regards money. I 
 fear that one of the earliest things the boy 
 could remember must have been connected 
 with pecuniary embarrassment. 
 
 While still a child, four years of age, he was 
 taken to live under the charge of an aunt, Mrs. 
 Harrild, at Sydenham. He stayed with her 
 for some years, going home to Coate every 
 summer for a month. At Sydenham he went 
 to a preparatory school kept by a lady. He was 
 then at the age of seven, but he had learned to 
 read long before. He does not seem to have 
 gained the character of precocity or excep- 
 tional cleverness at school, but Mrs. Harrild 
 remembers that he was always as a child read- 
 ing and drawing, and would amuse himself for 
 hours at a time over some old volume of 
 " Punch," or the " Illustrated London News/' 
 
28 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 or, indeed, anything he could get. He had a 
 splendid memory, was even so early a great 
 observer, and was always a most truthful 
 child, strong in his likes and dislikes. But he 
 possessed a highly nervous and sensitive 
 temperament, was hasty and quick-tempered, 
 impulsive, and, withal, very reserved. All 
 these qualities remained with Eichard 
 Jefferies to the end ; he was always reserved, 
 always sensitive, always nervous, always quick- 
 tempered. In his case, indeed, the child was 
 truly father to the man. It is pleasant to 
 record that he repaid the kindness of his aunt 
 with the affection of a son, keeping up a con- 
 stant correspondence with her. His letters, 
 indeed, are sometimes like a diary of his life, 
 as will be seen from the extracts I shall pre- 
 sently make from them. 
 
 At the age of nine the boy went home 
 for good. He was then sent to school at 
 Swiridon. 
 
 A letter from which I have already quoted 
 thus speaks of him at the age of ten : 
 
 " There was a summer-house of conical 
 shape in one corner paved with ' kidney ' 
 
CO ATE FARM. 29 
 
 stones. This was used by the boys as a 
 treasure-house, where darts, bows and arrows, 
 wooden swords, and other instruments used in 
 mimic warfare were kept. Two favourite pas- 
 times were those of living on a desert island, and 
 of waging war with wild Indians. Dick was 
 of a masterful' temperament, and though less 
 strong than several of us in a bodily sense, his 
 force of will was such that we had to succumb 
 to whatever plans he chose to dictate, never 
 choosing to be second even in the most trivial 
 thing. His temper was not amiable, but there 
 was always a gentleness about him which 
 saved him from the reproach of wishing to 
 ride rough-shod over the feelings of others. I 
 do not recollect his ever joining in the usual 
 boy's sports cricket or football he preferred 
 less athletic, if more adventurous, means of 
 enjoyment. He was a great reader, and I re- 
 member a sunny parlour window, almost like 
 a room, where many books of adventure and 
 fairy tales were read by him. Close to his 
 home was the ' Eeservoir/ a prettily-situated 
 lake surrounded by trees, and with many 
 romantic nooks on the banks. Here we often 
 
30 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 used to go on exploring expeditions in quest 
 of curiosities or wild Indians." 
 
 Here we get at the origin of " Bevis." 
 Those who have read that romance which, if 
 it were better proportioned and shorter, would 
 be the most delightful boy's book in the 
 world will remember how the lads played and 
 made pretence upon the shores and waters of 
 the lake. Now they are travellers in the 
 jungle of wild Africa ; now they come upon a 
 crocodile ; now they hear close by the roar of 
 a lion ; now they discern traces of savages ; 
 now they go into hiding ; now they discover a 
 great inland sea ; now they build a hut and 
 live upon a desert island. The man at thirty - 
 six recalls every day of his childhood, and 
 makes a story out of it for other children. 
 
 One of the things which he did was to 
 make a canoe for himself with which to ex- 
 plore the lake. To make a canoe would be 
 beyond the powers of most boys ; but then 
 most boys are brought up in a crowd, and can 
 do nothing except play cricket and football. 
 The shaping of the canoe is described in 
 " After London " : 
 
CO ATE FARM. 31 
 
 " He had chosen the black poplar for the 
 canoe because it was the lightest wood, and 
 would float best. To fell so large a tree had 
 been a great labour, for the axes were of poor 
 quality, cut badly, and often required sharpen- 
 ing. He could easily have ordered half a 
 dozen men to throw the tree, and they would 
 have obeyed immediately ; but then the indi- 
 viduality and interest of the work would have 
 been lost. Unless he did it himself its im- 
 portance and value to him would have been 
 diminished. It had now been down some 
 weeks, had been hewn into outward shape, 
 and the larger part of the interior slowly dug 
 away with chisel and gouge. 
 
 " He had commenced while the hawthorn 
 was just putting forth its first spray, when the 
 thickets and the trees were yet bare. Now 
 the May bloom scented the air, the forest was 
 green, and his work approached completion. 
 There remained, indeed, but some final shaping 
 and rounding off, and the construction, or 
 rather cutting out, of a secret locker in the 
 stern. This locker was nothing more than a 
 square aperture chiselled out like a mortise, 
 
32 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 entering not from above, but parallel with the 
 bottom, and was to be closed with a tight- 
 fitting piece of wood driven in by force of 
 mallet. 
 
 " A little paint would then conceal the slight 
 chinks, and the boat might be examined in 
 every possible way without any trace of this 
 hiding-place being observed. The canoe was 
 some eleven feet long, and nearly three feet in 
 the beam ; it tapered at either end, so that it 
 might be propelled backwards or forwards 
 without turning, and stem and stern (inter- 
 changeable definitions in this case) each rose a 
 few inches higher than the general gunw r ale. 
 The sides were about two inches thick, the 
 bottom three, so that although dug out from 
 light wood, the canoe was rather heavy." 
 
 " As a boy," to quote again from the same 
 letter, " he was no great talker ; but if we could 
 get him in the humour, he would tell us racy 
 and blood-curdling romances. There was one 
 particular spot on the Coate road many years 
 ago a quarry, afterwards deserted upon 
 which he wove many fancies, with murders 
 and ghosts. Always, in going home after one 
 
CO ATE FARM. 33 
 
 of our visits to the farm, we used to think we 
 heard the clanking chains or ringing hoof of the 
 phantom horse careering after us, and we would 
 rush on in full flight from the fateful spot." 
 
 His principal companion in boyhood was 
 his next brother, younger than himself by one 
 year only, but very different in manners, ap- 
 pearance, and in tastes. He describes both 
 himself and his brother in "After London." 
 Felix is himself ; Oliver is his brother. 
 
 This is Felix : 
 
 " Independent and determined to the last 
 degree, Felix ran any risk rather than sur- 
 render that which he had found, and which 
 he deemed his own. This unbending indepen- 
 dence and pride of spirit, together with scarce- 
 concealed contempt for others, had resulted in 
 almost isolating him from the youth of his 
 own age, and had caused him to be regarded 
 with dislike by the elders. He was rarely, if 
 ever, asked to join the chase, and still more 
 rarely invited to the festivities and amuse- 
 ments provided in adjacent houses, or to the 
 grander entertainments of the higher nobles. 
 
 3 
 
34 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 Too quick to take offence where none was 
 really intended, he fancied that many bore 
 him ill-will who had scarcely given him a 
 passing thought. He could not forgive the 
 coarse jokes uttered upon his personal appear- 
 ance by men of heavier build, who despised so 
 slender a stripling. 
 
 " He would rather be alone than join their 
 company, and would not compete with them 
 in any of their sports, so that, when his 
 absence from the arena was noticed, ifc was 
 attributed to weakness or cowardice. These 
 imputations stung him deeply, driving him to 
 brood within himself." 
 
 And this is Oliver : 
 
 " Oliver's whole delight was in exercise and 
 sport. The boldest rider, the best swimmer, 
 the best at leaping, at hurling the dart or the 
 heavy hammer, ever ready for tilt or tourna- 
 ment, his whole life was spent with horse, 
 sword, and lance. A year younger than 
 Felix, he was at least ten years physically 
 older. He measured several inches more 
 round the chest ; his massive shoulders and 
 
CO ATE FARM. 35 
 
 immense arms, brown and hairy, his power- 
 ful limbs, tower-like neck, and somewhat 
 square jaw were the natural concomitants of 
 enormous physical strength. 
 
 " All the blood and bone and thew and 
 sinew of the house seemed to have fallen to 
 his share ; all the fiery, restless spirit and de- 
 fiant temper ; all the utter recklessness and 
 warrior's instinct. He stood every inch a 
 man, with dark, curling, short-cut hair, brown 
 cheek and Eoman chin, trimmed moustache, 
 brown eye, shaded by long eyelashes and well- 
 marked brows ; every inch a natural king of 
 men. That very physical preponderance and 
 animal beauty was perhaps his bane, for his 
 comrades were so many, and his love adven- 
 tures so innumerable, that they left him no 
 time for serious ambition. 
 
 " Between the brothers there was the 
 strangest mixture of affection and repulsion. 
 The elder smiled at the excitement and energy 
 of the younger; the younger openly despised the 
 studious habits and solitary life of the elder. 
 In time of real trouble and difficulty they 
 would have been drawn together ; as it was, 
 
 32 
 
36 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 there was little communion ; the one went his 
 way, and the other his. There was perhaps 
 rather an inclination to detract from each 
 other's achievements than to praise them, a 
 species of jealousy or envy without personal 
 dislike, if that can be understood. They were 
 good friends, and yet kept apart. 
 
 " Oliver made friends of all, and thwacked 
 and banged his enemies into respectful silence. 
 Felix made friends of none, and was equally 
 despised by nominal friends and actual 
 enemies. Oliver was open and jovial ; Felix 
 reserved and contemptuous, or sarcastic in 
 manner. His slender frame, too tall for his 
 width, was against him ; he could neither lift 
 the weights nor undergo the muscular strain 
 readily borne by Oliver. It was easy to see 
 that Felix, although nominally the eldest, had 
 not yet reached his full development. A light- 
 complexion, fair hair and eyes, were also 
 against him ; where Oliver made conquests, 
 Felix was unregarded. He laughed, but per- 
 haps his secret pride was hurt." 
 
 After his return from Sydenham the boy, as 
 I have said, went to school for a year or two 
 
CO ATE FARM. 37 
 
 at Svvindon. Then he presently began to 
 read. He had always delighted in books, espe- 
 cially in illustrated books ; now he began to 
 read everything that he could get. 
 
 The boy who reads everything, the boy 
 who takes out his younger brothers and his 
 cousins and makes them all pretend as he 
 pleases, see what he orders them * to see, 
 and shudder at his bidding and at the crea- 
 tures of his own imagination what sort of 
 future is in store for that boy \ And think of 
 what his life might have become had he been 
 forced into clerkery or into trade : how crippled, 
 miserable, and cramped ! It is indeed miser- 
 able to think of the thousands designed for a 
 life of art, of letters, of open air, or of science, 
 wasted and thrown away in labouring at the 
 useless desk or the hateful counter. 
 
 This boy therefore read everything. Pre- 
 sently, when he had read all that there was at 
 Coate, and all that his grandfather had to lend 
 him, he began to borrow of everybody and to 
 buy. It is perfectly wonderful, as everybody 
 knows, how a boy who never seems to get any 
 money manages to buy books. The fact is that 
 
38 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 all boys get money, but the boy who wants books 
 saves his pennies. For twopence you can very 
 often pick up a book that you want ; for six- 
 pence you can have a choice ; a shilling will 
 tempt a second-hand bookseller to part with 
 what seems a really valuable book; half-a-crown 
 but such a boy never even sees a half-crown 
 piece. -Kichard Jefferies differed in one re- 
 spect from most boys who read everything. 
 They live in the world of books ; the outer 
 world does not exist for them ; the birds sing, 
 the lambs spring, the flowers blossom, but 
 they heed them not ; they grow short -sigh ted 
 over the small print ; they become more and 
 more enamoured of phrase, captivated by 
 words, charmed by style, so that they forget 
 the things around them. When they go 
 abroad they enact the fable of " Eyes and 
 No Eyes/ 7 playing the less desirable part, 
 Jefferies, on the other hand, was preserved 
 from this danger. His father, the reserved 
 and meditative man, took him into the fields 
 and turned over page after page with him of 
 the book of Nature, expounding, teaching, 
 showing him how to use his eyes, and con- 
 
CO ATE FARM. 39 
 
 tinually reading to him out of that great 
 book. 
 
 So a strange thing came to pass. Most of 
 us who go away from our native place forget 
 it, or we only remember it from time to time ; 
 the memory grows dim ; when we go back we 
 are astonished to find how much we have for- 
 gotten, and how distorted are the memories 
 which remain. Kichard Jefferies, however, 
 who presently left Coate, never forgot the old 
 place. It remained with him every tree, 
 every field, every hill, every patch of wild 
 thyme all through his life, clear arid distinct, 
 as if he had left it but an hour before. In 
 almost everything he wrote Coate is in his 
 mind. Even in his book of " Wild Life 
 Eound London " the reader thinks sometimes 
 that he is on the wild Wiltshire Downs, while 
 the wind whistles in his ears, and the lark is 
 singing in the sky, and far, far away the 
 sheep-bells tinkle. 
 
 Why, in the very last paper which he ever 
 wrote it appeared in Longman's Magazine 
 two months after his death his memory goes 
 back to the hamlet where he was born. He 
 
40 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 recalls the cottage where John Brown lived 
 you can see it still, close to Coate as well as 
 that where Job lived who kept the shop and 
 was always buying and selling ; and of the 
 water-bailiff who looked after the great pond : 
 
 " There were one or two old boats, and he 
 used to leave the oars leaning against a wall 
 at the side of the house. These oars looked 
 like fragments of a wreck, broken and irregular. 
 The right-hand scull was heavy as if made of 
 ironwood, the blade broad and spoon-shaped, 
 so as to have a most powerful grip of the 
 water. The left-hand scull was light and 
 slender, with a narrow blade like a marrow- 
 scoop ; so when you had the punt, you had to 
 pull very hard with your left hand and gently 
 with the right to get the forces equal. The 
 punt had a list of its own, and no matter how 
 you rowed, it would still make leeway. Those 
 who did not know its character were perpetu- 
 ally trying to get this crooked wake straight, 
 and consequently went round and round 
 exactly like the whirligig beetle. Those who 
 knew used to let the leeway proceed a good 
 
COATE FARM. 41 
 
 way and then alter it, so as to act in the other 
 direction like an elongated zigzag. These 
 sculls the old fellow would bring you as if 
 they were great treasures, and watch you off 
 in the punt as if he was parting with his 
 dearest. At that date it was no little matter 
 to coax him round to unchain his vessel. You 
 had to take an interest in the garden, in the 
 baits, and the weather, and be very humble ; 
 then perhaps he would tell you he did not 
 want it for the trimmers, or the withy, or the 
 flags, and you might have it for an hour as 
 far as he could see ; ' did not think my lord's 
 steward would come over that morning; of 
 course, if he did you must come in/ and so 
 on ; and if the stars were propitious, by-the- 
 bye, the punt was got afloat." 
 
 Then the writer he was a dying man 
 sings his song of lament because the past is 
 past and dead. All that is past, and that 
 we shall never see again, is dead. The brook 
 that used to leap and run and chatter it is 
 dead. The trees that used to put on new 
 leaves every spring they are dead. All is 
 
42 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 dead and swept away, hamlet and cottage, 
 hillside and coppice, field and hedge. 
 
 " I think I have heard that the oaks are 
 down. They may be standing or down, it 
 matters nothing to me ; the leaves I last saw 
 upon them are gone for evermore, nor shall I 
 ever see them come there again ruddy in 
 spring. I would not see them again even if I 
 could ; they could never look again as they used 
 to do. There are too many memories there. 
 The happiest days become the saddest after- 
 wards ; let us never go back, lest we too die. 
 There are no such oaks anywhere else, none so 
 tall and straight, and with such massive heads, 
 on which the sun used to shine as if on the 
 globe of the earth, one side in shadow, the 
 other in bright light. How often I have 
 looked at oaks since, and yet have never been 
 able to get the same effect from them ! Like 
 an old author printed in other type, the words 
 are the same, but the sentiment is different. 
 The brooks have ceased to run. There is no 
 music now at the old hatch where we used to 
 sit in danger of our lives, happy as kings, on 
 
CO ATE FARM. 43 
 
 the narrow bar over the deep % water. The 
 barred pike that used to come up in such 
 numbers are no more among the flags. The 
 perch used to drift down the stream, and then 
 bring up again. The sun shone there for a 
 very long time, and the water rippled and 
 sang, and it always seemed to me that I could 
 feel the rippling and the singing and the 
 sparkling back through the centuries. The 
 brook is dead, for when man goes nature ends. 
 I dare say there is water there still, but it 
 is not the brook ; the brook is gone like John 
 Brown's soul. There used to be clouds over 
 the fields, white clouds in blue summer skies. 
 I have lived a good deal on clouds ; they have 
 been meat to me often ; they bring something 
 to the spirit which even the trees do not. I 
 see clouds now sometimes when the iron grip 
 of hell permits for a minute or two ; they are 
 very different clouds, and speak differently. 
 I long for some of the old clouds that had na 
 memories. There were nights in those times 
 over those fields, not darkness, but Night, full 
 of glowing suns and glowing richness of life 
 that sprang up to meet them. The nights are 
 
44 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 there still ; they are everywhere, nothing local 
 in the night ; but it is not the Night to me 
 seen through the window." 
 
 Nobody believes him, he says. People ask 
 him if such a village ever existed of course, 
 it never existed. What beautiful picture ever 
 really existed save in the sunrise and in the 
 sunset sky ? Those living in the place about 
 which these wonderful things are written look 
 at each other in amazement, and ask what 
 they mean. All this about Coate ? Why, 
 here are only half a dozen cottages, mean and 
 squalid, with thatched roofs ; and beyond the 
 hedge are only fields with a great pond and 
 bare hills beyond. " No one else," says 
 JeiFeries, " seems to have seen the sparkle on 
 the brook, or heard the music at the hatch, or 
 to have felt back through the centuries ; and 
 when I try to describe these things to them 
 they look at me with stolid incredulity. No 
 one seems to understand how I got food from 
 the clouds, nor what there was in the night, 
 nor why it is not so good to look out of 
 window. They turn their faces away from 
 
CO ATE FARM. 45 
 
 me, so that perhaps, after all, I was mistaken, 
 and there never was any such place, or any 
 such meadows, and I was never there. And 
 perhaps in course of time I shall find out also, 
 when I pass away physically, that as a matter 
 of fact there never was any earth." That, 
 indeed, will be the most curious discovery 
 possible in the after-world. No earth then 
 no Coate ; no " Wild Life in a Southern 
 County," and no " Gamekeeper at Home," 
 because there has never been any home for 
 any gamekeeper. 
 
 I have dwelt at some length upon these 
 early years of Jefferies' life because they are 
 all-important. They explain the whole of his 
 after-life ; they show how the book of Nature 
 was laid open to this man in a way that it 
 was never before presented to any man who 
 had also the divine gift of utterance, namely, 
 by a man who, though steeped in the wisdom 
 of the field and forest though he had read 
 indeed in the book could not read it aloud 
 for all to hear. 
 
 In order to read this book aright, one must 
 live apart from one's fellow-men and remain 
 
46 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 a stranger to their ambitions, ignorant of their 
 crooked ways, their bickerings, and their plea- 
 sures. One must have quick and observant 
 eyes, trained to watch and mark the infinite 
 changes and variations in Nature, day by day ; 
 one must go to Nature's school from infancy 
 in order to get this power. Nay ; one must 
 never cease to exercise this power, or it will be 
 lost ; it must be continually nourished and 
 strengthened by being exercised. If one who 
 has this power should go to live in the city, 
 his eyes would grow as sluggish and as dim as 
 ours ; his ear would be blunted by the rolling 
 of the carts, and his mind disturbed by the 
 rush and the activity of the crowd. Again, if 
 one who had this power should abandon the 
 simple life, and should deaden his senses with 
 luxury, sloth, and vice, he would quickly lose 
 it. He must live apart from men ; all day 
 long the sun must burn his cheek, the wind 
 must blow upon it, the rain must beat upon 
 it ; he must never be out of reach of the 
 fragrant wild flowers and the call and cry of 
 the birds. Of such men literature can show 
 but two or three Gilbert White, Thoreau, 
 
CO ATE FARM. 47 
 
 and Jefferies but the greatest of them all is 
 Jefferies. No one before him has so lived 
 among the fields ; no one has heard so clearly 
 the song of the flowers and the weeds and the 
 blades of grass. The million million blades 
 of grass spoke to Jefferies as the Oak of 
 Dodona spoke through its thousand leaves. 
 "When he went home he sat down and was 
 inspired to translate that language, and to tell 
 the world what the grass says and sings to 
 him who can hear. 
 
 He who met the great God Pan face to face 
 fell down dead. Still, even in these days, he 
 who communes with the Sylvan Spirit pre- 
 sently dies to the ways of men, while his 
 senses are opened to see the hidden things of 
 hedge and meadow ; while his soul is uplifted 
 by the beauty and the variety and the order 
 of the world ; by the wondrous lives of the 
 creatures, so full of peril, and so full of joy. 
 Then, if he be permitted to reveal these 
 things, what can we who receive this revela- 
 tion give in exchange ? What words of praise 
 and gratitude can we find in return for this 
 unfolding of the Book of Fleeting Life ? 
 
48 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 As for us, we listened to the voice of this 
 master for ten years ; we shall hear no more 
 of his discourses ; but the old ones remain ; we 
 can go back to them again and again. It is 
 the quality of truthful work that it never 
 grows old or stale ; one can return to it again 
 and again ; there is always something fresh in 
 it, something new. In a great poem the lines 
 always bring some new thought to the mind ; 
 in great music, the harmonies always call forth 
 some fresh emotion, and inspire some new 
 thought ; in a true book there is always some 
 new truth to be discovered. If all the rest of 
 the literature of this day prove ephemeral 
 and is doomed to swift oblivion, the work of 
 Jefferies shall not perish. Our fashions change, 
 and the things of which we write become old 
 and pass away. But the everlasting hills 
 abide, and the meadows still lie green and 
 flowery, and the roses and wild honeysuckle 
 still blossom in the hedge. And those who 
 have written of these are so few, and their 
 words are so precious, that they shall not pass 
 away, so long as their tongue endureth to be 
 spoken and to be read. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 SIXTEEN TO TWENTY. 
 
 AT the age of sixteen, Richard Jefferies had an 
 adventure almost the only adventure of his 
 quiet life. It was an adventure which could 
 only happen to a youth of strong imagination, 
 capable of seeing no difficulties or dangers, and 
 refusing to accept the word " impossible." 
 
 At this time he was a long and loose-limbed 
 lad, regarded by his own family as at least an 
 uncommon youth and a subject of anxiety as 
 to his future, a boy who talked eagerly of 
 things far beyond the limits of the farm, who 
 was self-willed and masterful, whose ideas 
 astonished and even irritated those whose 
 thoughts were accustomed to move in a narrow, 
 unchanging groove. He was also a boy, as 
 
 4 
 
50 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 we have seen, who had the power of imposing 
 his own imagination upon others, even those 
 of sluggish temperament as Don Quixote 
 overpowered the slow brain of Sancho Panza. 
 
 Eichard Jefieries then, at the age of sixteen, 
 conceived a magnificent scheme, the like of 
 which never before entered a boy's brain. Above 
 all things he wanted to see foreign countries. 
 He therefore proposed to another lad nothing 
 less than to undertake a walk through the 
 whole of Europe, as far as Moscow and back 
 again. The project was discussed and debated 
 long and seriously. At last it was referred to 
 the decision of the dog as to an oracle, In 
 this way : if the dog wagged his tail within a 
 certain time, they would go ; if the dog's tail 
 remained quiet, it should be taken as a warn- 
 ing or premonition against the journey. Ee- 
 liance should never, as a matter of fact, be 
 placed in the oracle of the dog's tail ; but 
 this the lads were too young to understand. 
 The tail wagged. The boys ran away. It 
 was on November 11, in the year 1864. Now, 
 here, certain details of the story are wanting. 
 The novelist is never happy unless the whole 
 
SIXTEEN TO TWENTY. 51 
 
 machinery of his tale is clear in his own mind. 
 And I confess that I know not how the two 
 boys raised the money with which to pay their 
 preliminary expenses. You may support your- 
 self, as Oliver Goldsmith did, by a flute or a 
 fiddle, you may depend upon the benefactions 
 of unknown kind hearts in a strange land, but 
 the steamship company and the railway com- 
 pany must be always paid beforehand. Where 
 did the passage-money come from ? Nay, as 
 you will learn presently, there must have been 
 quite a large -bag of money to start with. 
 "Where did it come from? The other boy 
 the unknown the innominatus doubtless 
 found that bag of gold. 
 
 They got to Dover and they crossed the 
 Channel, and they actually began their journey. 
 But I know not how far they got, nor how 
 long a time, exactly, they spent in France 
 about a week, it would seem. They very 
 quickly, however, made the humiliating dis- 
 covery that they could not understand a word 
 that was said to them, nor could they, save by 
 signs, make themselves understood. Therefore 
 they relinquished the idea of walking to 
 
 42 
 
52 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 Moscow, and reluctantly returned. But they 
 would not go home ; perhaps, because they 
 were still athirst for adventure ; perhaps, be- 
 cause they were ashamed. They then saw an 
 advertisement in a newspaper which fired their 
 imaginations again. The advertiser under- 
 took, for an absurdly small sum, to take them 
 across to New York. The amount named was 
 just within the compass of their money. They 
 resolved to see America instead of Kussia ; 
 they called at the agent's office and paid their 
 fares. Their tickets took them free to Liver- 
 pool, whither they repaired. Unfortunately, 
 when they reached Liverpool, they learned 
 that the tickets did not include bedding of 
 any kind, or provisions, so that if they went 
 on board they would certainly be frozen and 
 starved. What was to be done ? They had no 
 more money. They could not get their money 
 returned. They were helpless. They resolved 
 therefore to give up the whole project, and to 
 go home again. JefFeries undertook to pawn 
 their watches in order to get the money for 
 the railway ticket. His appearance and 
 manner, for some reason or other pawning 
 
SIXTEEN TO TWENTY. 53 
 
 being doubtless a new tiling with him roused 
 so much suspicion in the mind of the pawn- 
 broker that he actually gave the lad into 
 custody. Happily, the superintendent of 
 police believed his story probably a telegram 
 to Swindon strengthened his faith ; he him- 
 self advanced them the money, keeping the 
 watches as security, and sent them home after 
 an expedition which lasted a fortnight alto- 
 gether. There is no doubt as to the facts of 
 the case. The boys did actually start, with 
 intent to march all the way across Europe as 
 far as Kussia and back again. But how they 
 began, how they raised the money to pay the 
 preliminary expenses, wants more light. Also, 
 there is no record as to their reception after they 
 got home again. One suspects somehow that 
 on this occasion the fatted calf was allowed to 
 go on growing. 
 
 It must have been about this time that the lad 
 began to have his bookish learning remarked 
 and respected, if not encouraged. One of the 
 upper rooms of the farmhouse the other was 
 the cheese-room was set apart for him alone. 
 Here he had his books, his table, his desk, and 
 
54 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 his bed. This room was sacred. Here he 
 read ; here he spent all his leisure time in 
 reading. He read during this period an im- 
 mense quantity. Shakespeare, Chaucer, Scott, 
 Byron, Dryden, Voltaire, Goethe he was 
 never tired of reading Faust and it is said, 
 but I think it must have been in translation, 
 that he read most of the Greek and Latin 
 masters. It is evident from his writings that he 
 had read a great deal, yet he ]acks the touch of 
 the trained scholar. That cannot be attained 
 by solitary and desultory reading, however 
 omnivorous. His chief literary adviser in 
 those days was Mr. William Morris, of S win- 
 don, proprietor and editor of the North Wilts 
 Advertiser. Mr. Morris is himself the author 
 of several works, among others a " History of 
 Swindon," and, as becomes a literary man with 
 such surroundings, he is a well-known local 
 antiquary. Mr. Morris allowed the boy, who 
 was at school with his own son, the run of his 
 own library ; he lent him books, and he talked 
 with him on subjects which, one can easily 
 understand, were not topics of conversation at 
 Coate. Afterwards, when Jefferies had already 
 
SIXTEEN TO TWENTY. 55 
 
 become reporter for the local press, it was the 
 perusal of a descriptive paper by Mr. Morris, 
 on the " Lakes of Killarney," which decided 
 the lad upon seriously attempting the literary 
 career. 
 
 What inclined the lad to become a journal- 
 ist ? First of all, the narrow family circum- 
 stances prevented his being brought up to one 
 of the ordinary professions : he might have 
 become a clerk ; he might have gone to London, 
 where he had friends in the printing business ; 
 he might have emigrated, as his brother after- 
 wards did ; he might have gone into some 
 kind of trade. As for farming, he had no 
 taste for it; the idea of becoming a farmer 
 never seems to have occurred to him as possi- 
 ble. But he could not bear the indoor life ; 
 to be chained all day long to a desk would 
 have been intolerable to him ; it would have 
 killed him ; he needed such a life as would 
 give him a great deal of time in the open air. 
 Such he found in journalism. His friend, Mr. 
 Morris, gave him the first start by printing 
 for him certain sketches and descriptive papers. 
 And he had the courage to learn shorthand. 
 
56 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 He had already before this begun to write. 
 
 " I remember " I quote from a letter which 
 has already furnished information about these 
 early days " that he once showed his brother 
 a roll of manuscript which he said ' meant 
 money ' some day." It was necessary in that 
 house to think of money first. 
 
 I wonder what that manuscript was. Per- 
 haps poetry a clever lad's first attempt at 
 verse ; there is never a clever lad who does 
 not try his hand at verse. Perhaps it was a 
 story we shall see that he wrote many stories. 
 At that time his handwriting was so bad that 
 when he began to feed the press, the com- 
 positors bought him a copybook and a penholder 
 and begged him to use it. He did use it, and 
 his handwriting presently became legible at 
 least, but it remained to the end a bad hand- 
 writing. His note-books especially are very 
 hard to read. 
 
 He was left by his father perfectly free and 
 uncontrolled. He was allowed to do what he 
 pleased or what he could find to do. This 
 liberty of action made him self- reliant. It 
 also, perhaps, increased his habit of solitude 
 
SIXTEEN TO TWENTY. 57 
 
 and reserve. In those days he used to draw a 
 great deal, and is said to have acquired con- 
 siderable power in pen-and-ink sketches, but I 
 have never seen any of them. 
 
 At this period he was careless as to his dress 
 and appearance ; he suffered his hair to grow 
 long until it reached his coat collar. " This," 
 says one who knew him then, " with his bent 
 form and long, rapid stride, made him an object 
 of wonder in the town of Swindon. But he was 
 perfectly unconscious of this, or indifferent to it." 
 
 Later on, he understood better the necessity 
 of paying attention to personal appearance, and 
 in his advice to the young journalist he points 
 out that he should be quietly but well dressed, 
 and that he should study genial manners. 
 
 In appearance Eichard Jefferies was very 
 tall over six feet. He was always thin. At 
 the age of seventeen his friends feared that he 
 would go into a decline, which was happily 
 averted perhaps through his love for the open 
 air. His hair was dark-brown ; his beard was 
 brown, with a shade of auburn; his forehead 
 both high and broad ; his features strongly 
 marked ; his nose long, clear, and straight ; 
 
58 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 his lower lip thick ; his eyebrows distinguished 
 by the meditative droop ; his complexion was 
 fair, with very little colour. The most remark- 
 able feature in his face was his large and clear 
 blue eye ; it was so full that it ought to have 
 been short-sighted, yet his sight was far as 
 well as keen. His face was full of thought ; 
 he walked with somewhat noiseless tread and 
 a rapid stride. He never carried an umbrella 
 or wore a great-coat, nor, except in very cold 
 weather, did he wear gloves. He had great 
 powers of endurance in walking, but his phy- 
 sical strength was never great. In manner, 
 as has been already stated, he was always 
 reserved ; at this time so much so as to appear 
 morose to those who knew him but slightly. 
 He made few friends. Indeed, all through 
 life he made fewer friends than any other man. 
 This was really because, for choice, he always 
 lived as much in the country as possible, and 
 partly because he had no sympathy with the 
 ordinary pursuits of men. Such a man as 
 Eichard JefFeries could never be clubable. 
 What would he talk about at the club ? The 
 theatre? He never went there. Literature 
 
SIXTEEN TO TWENTY. 59 
 
 of the day ? He seldom read it. Politics ? 
 He belonged to the people, and cursed either 
 party. That once said, he had nothing more 
 to say. Art ? He had ideas of his own on 
 painting, and they were unconventional. 
 Gossip and scandal ? He never heard any. 
 Wine ? He knew nothing about wine. Yet 
 to those whom he knew and trusted he was 
 neither reserved nor morose. An eremite 
 would be driven mad by chatter if he left his 
 hermitage and came back to his native town ; 
 so this roamer among the hills could not endure 
 the profitless talk of man, while Nature was 
 willing to break her silence for him alone 
 among the hills and in the woods. 
 
 He became, then, a journalist. It is a pro- 
 fession which leaves large gaps in the day, 
 and sometimes whole days of leisure. The 
 work, to such a lad as Jefferies, was easy ; he 
 had to attend meetings and report them ; to 
 write descriptive papers ; to furnish and dress 
 up paragraphs of news ; to look about the 
 town and pick up everything that was said or 
 done ; to attend the police courts, inquests, 
 county courts, auctions, markets, and every- 
 
60 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 thing. The life of a country journalist is busy, 
 but it is in great measure an out-door life. 
 
 Although Mr. Morris was his first literary 
 friend and adviser, Jefferies was never 
 attached to his paper as reporter. Perhaps 
 there was no vacancy at the time. He ob- 
 tained work on the North Wilts Herald, 
 and afterwards became in addition the 
 Swindon correspondent of the Wilts and 
 Gloucestershire Standard, published at Ciren- 
 cester. The editor of the North Wilts 
 Herald was a Mr. Piper, who died two years 
 ago. Of him Jefferies always spoke with the 
 greatest respect, calling him his old master. 
 But in what sense he himself was a pupil I 
 know not. Nor can I gather that Jefferies, 
 who acquired his literary style much later, and 
 after, as will be seen, the production of much 
 work which has deservedly fallen into oblivion, 
 learned anything as a writer from anybody. 
 In the line which he afterwards struck out for 
 himself that of observations of nature his 
 master, as regards the subject-matter, was his 
 father ; as regards his style he had no master. 
 
 He filled these posts and occupied himself 
 
SIXTEEN TO TWENTY. 61 
 
 in this kind of work between the years 1865 
 and 1877. 
 
 But he did other things as well, showing 
 that he never intended to sit down in ignoble 
 obscurity as the reporter of a country news- 
 paper. 
 
 I have before me a little book called " Ee- 
 porting, Editing, and Authorship/' published 
 without date at Swindon, and by John Snow 
 and Co., Ivy Lane, London. I think it ap- 
 peared in the year 1872, when he was in his 
 twenty-fourth year. It is, however, the work 
 of a very young man ; the kind of work at 
 which you must not laugh, although it amuses 
 you, because it is so very much in earnest, and 
 at the same time so very elementary. You 
 see before you in these pages the ideal re- 
 porter Jefferies was always zealous to do 
 everything that he had to do as well as it 
 could be done. It is divided into three 
 chapters, but the latter two are vague and 
 tentative, compared with the first. The little 
 book should have been called, " He would be 
 an Author." 
 
 " Let the aspirant," he says, " begin with 
 
62 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 acquiring a special knowledge of his own 
 district. The power and habit of doing this 
 may subsequently stand him in good stead as 
 a war-correspondent. Let him next study the 
 trade and industries peculiar to the place. If 
 he is able to write of these graphically, he will 
 acquire a certain connection and good-will 
 among the masters. He will strengthen him- 
 self if he contributes papers upon these sub- 
 jects to the daily papers or to the magazines ; 
 thus he will grow to be regarded as a repre- 
 sentative man. Next, he should study every- 
 where the topography, antiquities, traditions, 
 and general characteristics of the country 
 wherever he goes ; he should visit the 
 churches, and write about them. He may go 
 on to write a local history, or he may take a 
 local tradition and weave a story round about 
 it things which local papers readily publish. 
 Afterwards he may write more important 
 tales for country newspapers, and so by easy 
 stages rise to the grandeur of writing tales for 
 the monthly magazines." Observe that so far 
 the ambition of the writer is wholly in the 
 direction of novels. 
 
SIXTEEN TO TWENTY. 63 
 
 One piece of advice contrasts strongly with 
 the description of him given by his cousin. 
 He has found out that eccentricity of appear- 
 ance and manner does not advance a man. 
 Therefore he writes : 
 
 " A good personal manner greatly conduces 
 to the success of the reporter. He should be 
 pleasant and genial, but not loud : inquiring 
 without being inquisitive : bold, but not pre- 
 sumptuous : and above all respectful. The 
 reporter should be able to talk on all subjects 
 with all men. He should dress well, because it 
 obtains him immediate attention : but should 
 be careful to avoid anything ' horsey ' or fast. 
 The more gentlemanly his appearance and 
 tone, the better he will be received." 
 
 The chapter on Editing gives a tolerably 
 complete account of the conduct of a country- 
 town newspaper. The chapter on Authorship 
 is daring, because the writer as yet knew 
 nothing whatever of the subject. Among 
 other mistakes is the very common one of 
 supposing that a young man can help himself 
 on by publishing at his own expense a manu- 
 
64 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 script which all the respectable publishing 
 houses have refused. He himself subsequently 
 acted upon this mistake, and lost his money 
 without in the least advancing his reputation. 
 The young writer can seldom be made to under- 
 stand that all publishers are continually on the 
 look-out for good work ; that good work is 
 almost certain (though mistakes have been 
 made) to be taken up by the first publisher to 
 whom it is offered ; that if it is refused by 
 good Houses, the reason is that it is not good 
 work, and that paying for publication will not 
 turn bad work into good. Jefferies concludes 
 his little book by so shocking a charge against 
 the general public that it shall be quoted just 
 to show what this country lad of nineteen or 
 twenty thought was the right and knowing 
 thing to say about them : 
 
 " The public will read any commonplace 
 clap-trap if only a well-known name be 
 attached to it. Hence any amount of expendi- 
 ture is justified with this object. It is better 
 at once to realize the fact, however unpleasant 
 it may be to the taste, and instead of trying 
 
SIXTEEN TO TWENTY. 65 
 
 to win the good-will of the public by laborious 
 work, treat literature as a trade, which, like 
 other trades, requires an immense amount of 
 advertising." 
 
 This is Jefferies' own ideal of a journalist. 
 In March, 1866, being then eighteen years of 
 age, he began his work on the North Wilts 
 Herald. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 LETTERS FROM 1866 TO 1872. 
 
 THE principal sources of information concerning 
 the period of early manhood are the letters a 
 large number of these are happily preserved 
 which he wrote to his aunt, Mrs. Harrild. In 
 these letters, which are naturally all about him- 
 self, his work, his hopes, and his disappoint- 
 ments, he writes with perfect freedom and from 
 his heart. It is still a boyish heart, young 
 and innocent. " I always feel dull," he says, 
 " when I leave you. I am happier with you 
 than at home, because you enter into my pros- 
 pects with interest and are always kind. ... I 
 wish I could have got something to do in the 
 neighbourhood of Sydenham, which would have 
 enabled me to live with you." 
 
 The letters reveal a youth taken too soon 
 from school, but passionately fond of reading 
 
LETTERS FROM 1866 TO 1872. 67 
 
 of industry and application intense and un- 
 wearied ; he confesses his ambitions they are 
 for success ; he knows that he has the power 
 of success within him ; he tries for success 
 continually, and is as often beaten back, 
 because, though this he cannot understand, in 
 the way he tries success is impossible for him. 
 Let us run through this bundle of letters. 
 
 One thing to him who reads the whole 
 becomes immediately apparent, though it is 
 not so clear from the extracts alone. It is the 
 self-consciousness of the writer as regards style. 
 That is because he is intended by nature to 
 become a writer. He thinks how he may put 
 things to the best advantage ; he understands 
 the importance of phrase ; he wants not only 
 to say a thing, but to say it in a striking and 
 uncommon manner. Later on, when he has 
 gotten a style to himself, he becomes more 
 familiar and chatty. Thus, for instance, the 
 boy speaks of the great organ at the Crystal 
 Palace : "To me music is like a spring of 
 fresh water in the midst of the desert to a 
 wearied Arab." He was genuinely and truly 
 fond of good music, and yet this phrase has in 
 
 52 
 
68 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 it a note of unreality. Again, he is speaking 
 of one of his aunt's friends, and says, as if he 
 was the author of " Evelina " : " How is 
 Mr. A. 1 I remember him as a pleasant gentle- 
 man, anxious not to give trouble, and the 
 result is . . ." and so forth. "When one under- 
 stands that these letters were written by the 
 immature writer, such little things, with which 
 they abound, are pleasing. 
 
 In March, 1866, he describes the commence- 
 ment of his work on the North Wilts Herald ; 
 he speaks of the kindness of his chief and the 
 pleasant nature of his work. In December of 
 the same year he sends a story which he wants 
 his uncle to submit to a London magazine. 
 In June, 1867, he writes that he has completed 
 his " History of Swindon" and its neighbour- 
 hood. This probably appeared in the pages of 
 his newspaper. 
 
 In the same year he says that he has 
 finished a story called " Malmesbury." 
 
 "Here I have no books no old monkish 
 records to assist me everything must be 
 hunted out upon the spot. I visit every place 
 I have to refer to, copy inscriptions, listen to 
 
LETTERS FROM 1866 TO 1872. 69 
 
 legends, examine antiquities, measure this, 
 estimate that ; and a thousand other employ- 
 ments essential to a correct account take up 
 my time. The walking I can do is something 
 beyond belief. To give an instance. There 
 is a book published some twenty years ago 
 founded on a local legend. This I wanted, and 
 have actually been to ten different houses in 
 search of it ; that is, have had a good fifty 
 miles' walk, and as yet all in vain. However, 
 I think I am on the right scent now, and 
 believe I shall get it. 
 
 " This neighbourhood is a mine for an anti- 
 quary. I was given to understand at school 
 that in ancient days Britain was a waste un- 
 inhabited, rude and savage. I find this is a 
 mistake. I see traces of former habitation, 
 and former generations, in all directions. 
 There, Eoman coins ; here, British arrowheads, 
 tumuli, camps in short, the country, if I may 
 use the expression, seems alive with the dead. 
 I am inclined to believe that this part of North 
 Wilts, at least, was as thickly inhabited of yore 
 as it is now, the difference being only in the 
 spots inhabited having been exchanged for 
 
70 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 others more adapted to the wants of the times. 
 I do not believe these sweeping assertions as 
 to the barbarous state of our ancestors, The 
 more I study the matter the more absurd and un- 
 founded appear the notions popularly received." 
 
 " The spiders have been more disturbed in 
 the last few days than for twelve months past. 
 I detest this cruelty to spiders. I admire 
 these ingenious insects. One individual has 
 taken possession of a box of mine. This fellow 
 I call Caesar Borgia, because he has such an 
 affection for blood. You will call him a 
 monster, which is praise, since his size shows 
 the number of flies he has destroyed. Why 
 not keep a spider as well as a cat ? They are 
 both useful in their way, and a spider has this 
 advantage, that he will spin you a web which 
 will do instead of tapestry." 
 
 Between July 21st and September 2nd 
 of this year he writes of a bad illness which 
 sent him to bed and kept him there, until he 
 became as thin as a skeleton. As soon as he 
 was able to get out of bed he wrote to his 
 aunt ; his eyes were weak, and he could read 
 
LETTERS FROM 1866 TO 1872. 71 
 
 but little, which was a dreadful privation for 
 him. And he was most anxious lest he should 
 lose his post on the paper. 
 
 Later on he tells the good news that 
 Mr. Piper will give him another fortnight so 
 that he may get a change of air and a visit to 
 Sydenham. 
 
 He goes back to Swindon apparently 
 strengthened and in his former health and 
 energy. Besides his journal work he reports 
 himself engaged upon an " Essay on Instinct." 
 This is the first hint of his finding out his own 
 line, which, however, he would not really dis- 
 cover for a long time yet. 
 
 " The country," he says, little thinking what 
 the country was going to do for him, "is very 
 quiet and monotonous. There is a sublime 
 sameness in Coate that reminds you of the 
 stars that rise and set regularly just as we go 
 to bed down here." 
 
 His grandfather old Iden of (< Amaryllis " 
 died in April, 1868. 
 
 He speaks in June of his own uncertain 
 prospects. 
 
 " My father," he says, " will neither tell me 
 
72 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 what he would like done or anything else, so 
 that I go my own way and ask nobody. . . ." 
 The letters are full of the little familiar gossip 
 concerning this person and that, but he can 
 never resist the temptation of telling his aunt 
 who " enters into his prospects " all that 
 he is doing. He has now spent two months 
 over a novel this young man thinks that two 
 months is a prodigiously long time to give to 
 a novel. " I have taken great pains with it/' 
 he says, " and flatter myself that I have pro- 
 duced a tale of a very different class to those 
 sensational stories I wrote some time ago. I 
 have attempted to make my story lifelike by 
 delineating character rather than by sensational 
 incidents. My characters are many of them 
 drawn from life, and some of my incidents 
 actually took place." This is taking a step in 
 the right direction. One wonders what this 
 story was. But alas ! there were so many in 
 those days, and the end of all was the same. 
 And yet the poor young author took such 
 pains, such infinite pains, and all to no purpose, 
 for he was still groping blindly in the dark, 
 feeling for himself. 
 
LETTERS FROM 1866 TO 1872. 73 
 
 His health, however, gave way again. He 
 tells his aunt that he has been fainting in 
 church ; that he finds his work too exciting ; 
 that his walking powers seem to have left him 
 everybody knows the symptoms when a 
 young man outgrows his strength ; he would 
 like some quiet place ; such a Haven of Kepose 
 or Castle of Indolence, for instance, as the Civil 
 Service. All young men yearn at times for 
 some place where there will be no work to do, 
 and it speaks volumes for the happy adminis- 
 tration of this realm that every young man in 
 his yearning fondly turns his eyes to the Civil 
 Service. 
 
 He has hopes, he says, of getting on to the 
 reporting staff of the Daily News, ignorant of 
 the truth that a single year of work on a great 
 London paper would probably have finished 
 him off for good. Merciful, indeed, are the 
 gods, who grant to mankind, of all their 
 prayers, so few. 
 
 In July he was prostrated by a terrible 
 illness, aggravated by the great heat of that 
 summer. This illness threatened to turn into 
 consumption a danger happily averted. But 
 
74 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 it was many months before he could sit up 
 and write to his aunt in pencil. He was at 
 this time greatly under the influence of religion, 
 and his letters are full of a boyish, simple piety. 
 The hand of God is directing him, guiding 
 him, punishing him. His heart is soft in 
 thinking over the many consolations which 
 his prayers have brought him, and of the 
 increased benefit which he has derived from 
 reading the Bible. He has passed through, he 
 confesses, a period of scepticism, but that, he is 
 happy to say, is now gone, never to return again. 
 
 He is able to get out of bed at last ; he can 
 read a little, though his eyes are weak ; he can 
 once more return to his old habits, and drinks 
 his tea again as sweet as he can make it; he is 
 able presently to seize his pen again. And 
 then . . . then ... is he not going to be 
 a great author? And who knows in what 
 direction ? . . . then he begins a tragedy called 
 " Caesar Borgia ; or, The King of Crime." 
 
 He is touched by the thoughtfulness of the 
 cottagers. They have all called to ask after 
 him ; they have brought him honey. He re- 
 solves to cultivate the poor people more. 
 
LETTERS FROM 1866 TO 1872. 75 
 
 " After all," he says, with wisdom beyond 
 his years, " books are dead ; they should not 
 be our whole study. Too much study is 
 selfish." 
 
 Unfortunately the letters of the year 1869 
 have not been preserved ; but we may very 
 well understand that the lad spent that year 
 in much the same way as the year before and 
 the year after. That is to say, he wrote for 
 his country paper ; he reported ; he collected 
 local news ; and he devoted his spare time to 
 the writing of stories which were never to see 
 the light, or, more unhappy still, to perish at 
 their birth. 
 
 In the autumn of the year 1870 the letters 
 begin again. He has now got money enough 
 to give himself a holiday. He is at Hastings, 
 and he is going across the water to Ostend. 
 It is in September. The Prince Imperial of 
 France is in the place, and Jefferies hopes to 
 see him. There is a postscript with a charac- 
 teristic touch : " I do not forget A . Her 
 
 large and beautiful eyes have haunted me ever 
 since our visit to Worthing. Eemember me 
 to her, but please do it privately ; let no one 
 
76 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 else blow what I have said of her. I hope to 
 see her again." 
 
 Presently he did see the Prince, sitting at 
 the window of his room in the Marine Hotel. 
 The adventures which followed were, he says 
 in his next letter, " almost beyond credibility." 
 
 You shall hear how wonderful they were. 
 Lying in bed one night, a happy thought 
 occurred to him. He would write some verses 
 on the exile of the Prince. 
 
 " . . . No sooner thought than done. I com- 
 posed them that night, and wrote them out, 
 and posted them the first thing next morning 
 (Thursday). You say I am always either too 
 precipitate or too procrastinating. At least, I 
 lost no time in this. A day went by, and on 
 Easter day there came a note to me at the 
 hotel, from the aide-de-camp of the Prince, 
 acknowledging the receipt of the verses, and 
 saying that the Prince had been much pleased 
 with them. You will admit this was about 
 enough to turn a young author's head. Not 
 being au fait in French, I took the note to a 
 French lady professor, and she translated it for 
 
LETTERS FROM 1866 TO 1872. 77 
 
 me. I enclose the translation for you. But 
 does not S. learn French ? If so, it would 
 be good practice for her to try and read the 
 note. Please tell her to take care of it, as it 
 cannot be replaced, and will be of great value 
 to me in after-life. If I were seeking a place 
 on a London paper the production of that note 
 would be a wonderful recommendation. Well, 
 the reception of that acknowledgment en- 
 couraged me, and on the following morning I 
 set to work and wrote a letter to the Prince, 
 communicating some rather important infor- 
 mation which I had learnt whilst connected 
 with the press. The result was a second letter 
 from the aide-de-camp, this time dictated by 
 the Empress Eugenie, who had read my note. 
 I send you this letter too, and must beg you 
 to carefully preserve it. I took it and 
 had it translated by the same French lady, 
 
 Madame , and I enclose her translation. 
 
 She says that the expressions are very 
 warm, and cannot be adequately rendered 
 into English. She says it would be impos- 
 sible to write more cordially in French than 
 the Empress has done. Now came another 
 
78 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 discovery. It came out in conversation 
 with this French lady that she had actually 
 been to school with the Empress in her 
 youth ; that they had played together, and 
 been on picnics together. Her husband was 
 a sea-commander, and she showed me his 
 belt, etc. He served Napoleon when Napoleon 
 was president, but protested against the coup 
 d'etat of 1851, and they had then to leave 
 Paris. She had been unfortunate, and had 
 now to earn her bread. She still preserves 
 her husband's coat-of-arms, etc. Then came 
 another discovery. It appeared that the 
 equerries of the Empress (sixteen in number), 
 unable to speak English, had seen her adver- 
 tisement and came to her to act as interpreter. 
 She did so. After a while it crept out that 
 these rascals were abusing their employer be- 
 hind her back, and even went the length of 
 letting out private conversations they had 
 overheard in the Tuileries, and at the Marine 
 Hotel. She felt extremely indignant at this 
 ungrateful conduct (for they are well paid and 
 have three months' wages in advance), and she 
 should like the Empress to know, but being so 
 
LETTERS FROM 1866 TO 1872. 79 
 
 poor she could not call on her old companion ; 
 indeed, her pride would not permit. These 
 were the men, she said, from whom the Prus- 
 sians obtained intelligence ; and certainly they 
 did act the part of spies. Other Frenchmen 
 resident here met them at an inn, and they 
 there detailed to them what they had learnt at 
 the Marine Hotel. I persuaded her (she was 
 in a terrible way, indignant and angry) to 
 write to my friend, the aide-de-camp, and see 
 him. She did so, and the consequence is that 
 a number of these fellows have been discharged. 
 The Empress and the Prince are still here, 
 despite all paragraphs in the papers. They drove 
 out yesterday afternoon. I saw them. . . ." 
 
 After this adventure Jefferies took the boat 
 from Dover to Ostend. He had more adven- 
 tures on the journey : 
 
 ". . . It was a beautiful night, scarcely a breath 
 of air, moonlight and starlit, and a calm sea. 
 Every little wave that broke against the side 
 flashed like lightning with the phosphoric light 
 of the zoophytes, and when at eleven the pad- 
 dles began to move, great circles of phosphoric 
 
8o THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 light surrounded the vessel. I was on deck 
 all night, for instead of being four hours as 
 advertised, the boat was eight hours at sea. 
 After we had been out about four hours the 
 sailors mistook a light on the horizon for 
 Ostend, and steamed towards it. Presently 
 the light rose higher, and proved to be the 
 planet Venus, shining so brilliantly. At this 
 moment an immense bank of fog enveloped us, 
 so thick that one could scarcely see from one 
 end of the ship to the other. The captain had 
 lost his way, and the paddles were stopped. 
 After a short time there was the sound of a 
 cannon booming over the sea. Everyone 
 rushecl on deck, thinking of war and ironclads ; 
 but it was the guns at Ostend, far away, firing 
 to direct ships into port through the fog. It 
 was now found that we had actually got about 
 opposite Antwerp. So the ship was turned, 
 and we slowly crept back, afraid of running on 
 shore. Then, after an hour or two of this, we 
 got into shallow water, and the lead was 
 heaved every minute. The steam-whistle was 
 sounded, and the guns on shore again fired. 
 To our surprise, we had run past Ostend almost 
 
LETTERS FROM 1866 TO 1872. Si 
 
 as much the other way, thanks to the fog. 
 Now I heard a bell ringing on shore the 
 matin bell and you cannot imagine how 
 strange that bell sounded. You must under- 
 stand no shore was visible. More firing and 
 whistling, until people began to think we 
 should have to remain till the fog cleared. 
 But I did not grumble ; rather, I was glad, for 
 this delay gave me the opportunity of seeing 
 the sun, just as the fog cleared, rise at sea 
 an indescribable sight : 
 
 " ' Then over the waste of water 
 
 The morning sun uprose, 
 Through the driving mist revealed, 
 Like the lifting of the Host 
 By incense clouds almost 
 Concealed.' 
 
 A boat finally came off and piloted us into 
 harbour, which we reached at seven o'clock 
 Saturday morning eight hours' passage. 
 Numbers were ill the ladies, most dreadfully ; 
 I did not feel a qualm. I went on by the 
 next train at 9.30 to Brussels, and reached it 
 at one o'clock. . . ." 
 
 Brussels, at this moment, was full of French 
 people mad with grief and excitement at the 
 
 6 
 
82 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 conduct of the war and the disasters of their 
 country. Jefferies does not appear, however, to 
 have been much struck with the terror and pity 
 of the situation. It was his first experience of 
 foreign life, not counting his boyish escapade ; 
 his delight in the hotel, the table d'hote, the 
 wine, the brightness and apparent happiness of 
 the Brussels people they do somehow seem 
 younger and happier than any other people in 
 the world, except, perhaps, the Marseillais is 
 very vividly expressed. The ladies dazzle 
 him ; he thinks of " our London dowdies " and 
 shudders ; but alas 1 he cannot talk to them. 
 
 Then he goes back to Swindon, but not, for 
 the present, to Coate. There is trouble at 
 home. His father has to be brought round 
 gradually to look at things from his son's point 
 of view. Till that happy frame of mind has 
 been arrived at he cannot go home. But his 
 mother visits him, and so far as she is con- 
 cerned all is well. He is out of work and 
 has no money two shillings and threepence 
 can hardly be called money. Meantime, his 
 mind is still excited by his recent experiences. 
 He will never be happy in the country again ; 
 
LETTERS FROM 1866 TO 1872. 83 
 
 lie must find a place in London. It is the 
 kind aunt who fills his purse with a temporary 
 supply. 
 
 The following letter relates the difficulties 
 of finding work : 
 
 "... It is now four months since I last 
 saw you, and during that time I have unre- 
 mittingly endeavoured to get money by all 
 the fair means I could think of. Scarcely a 
 day has passed without making some attempt, 
 or without maturing some plan, and yet all of 
 them, as if by some kind of fate, have failed. 
 I have written all sorts of things. Very few 
 were rejected, but none brought any return. 
 I have endeavoured to get employment, but 
 there is none within reach. My old place 
 has been filled up for months, and I could 
 not recover it without resorting to unfair 
 means, unless by some unforeseen accident. 
 The other two papers here are sufficiently sup- 
 plied with reporters, and though ready enough 
 to receive my writings, don't pay a farthing. 
 There remains a paper at Marlborough to 
 which I applied. They were quite ready to 
 
 62 
 
84 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 employ me, but said that, as their circulation 
 at Swindon was very small, they could give 
 but a small price quoting a sum which abso- 
 lutely would not buy me a dinner once a week. 
 This was no good. Other papers further off 
 refused, entirely. As for answering advertise- 
 ments, or seeking situations in other places, it 
 was useless, from the following circumstance. 
 In the autumn a large London paper failed, and 
 the staff was thrown out. The consequence 
 was, that the market became overstocked 
 with reporters, and all vacancies were speedily 
 filled. My next step was to try the London 
 papers, especially the Pall Mall, with which I 
 have had more or less connection for years. 
 As I told you, three of the Dailies said if I 
 were in town they could give me plenty of 
 work, but not regular employment. In other 
 words, one would employ me one day, another 
 another, until an opening occurred for regular 
 work. . . ." 
 
 There are other details showing that it was 
 a terrible time of tightness. Threatenings of 
 county court for a debt of 2 10s. ; personal 
 
LETTERS FROM 1866 TO 1872. 85 
 
 apparel falling to pieces ; work offered by the 
 Pall Mall Gazette and other papers if he would 
 go up to London. But how ? One must have 
 enough to pay for board and lodging for a week, 
 at least ; one must have enough for the railway- 
 fare ; one must present a respectable appearance. 
 And now only a single halfpenny left ! We 
 have seen with sorrow how the young man had 
 been already reduced to two shillings and three- 
 pence. But this seems affluence when we look 
 at that solitary halfpenny. Only a halfpenny ! 
 Why, the coin will buy absolutely nothing. 
 
 Yet in this, the darkest hour, when he had 
 no money and could get no work when his 
 own people had ceased to believe in him he 
 still continued to believe in himself. That 
 kind of belief is a wonderful medicine in time 
 of trouble. It is sovereign against low spirits, 
 carelessness, and inactivity the chief evils 
 which follow on ill-success. 
 
 " . . . I have still the firmest belief in my 
 ultimate good-fortune and success. I believe 
 in destiny. Not the fear of total indigence 
 for my father threatens to turn me out of doors 
 
86 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 nor the fear of disgrace and imprisonment 
 for debt, can shake my calm indifference and 
 belief in my good-fortune. Though I have 
 but a halfpenny to-day, to-morrow I shall be 
 rich. Besides, though I have had a severe 
 cold, my health and strength are wonderful. 
 Nothing earthly can hurt me. . . ." 
 
 The next letter was written in July of the 
 same year, six months later. " I am very 
 busy," he says, " getting well known as a 
 writer. Both Swindon papers employ me ; 
 but I am chiefly occupied with my book. I 
 work at it almost night and day. I feel sure 
 it will succeed. If it does not, I know nothing 
 that will, and I may as well at once give up 
 the profession." 
 
 I do not think there is anything in the 
 world more full of pity and interest than the 
 spectacle of a clever young man struggling for 
 literary success. He knows, somehow he feels 
 in his heart, that he has the power. It is like 
 a hidden spring which has to be found, or a 
 secret force which has to be set in motion, or 
 a lamp which has to be set alight. This young 
 
LETTERS FROM 1866 TO 1872. 87 
 
 man was feeling after that secret force ; he was 
 looking for that lamp. For eight long years 
 he had been engaged in the search after this 
 most precious of all treasures. What was it 
 like the noblest part of himself that which 
 would never die ? Alas ! he knew not. He 
 hardly knew as yet that it was noble at all. 
 So his search carried him continually farther 
 from the thing which he would find. 
 
 On July 28 he writes a most joyful letter. 
 He has achieved a feat which was really re- 
 markable ; in fact, he has actually received a 
 letter from Mr. Disraeli himself on the subject 
 of a work prepared by himself. It will be 
 observed that by a natural confusion he mixes 
 up the success of getting a letter from this 
 statesman with the success of his book. 
 
 " . . . I told you that I had been bending 
 all my energies to the completion of a work. 
 I completed it a short time since, and an op- 
 portunity offering, I wrote to Disraeli, describ- 
 ing it, and asking his opinion. You know he 
 is considered the cleverest man in England ; 
 that he is the head of the rich and powerful 
 
88 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 Conservative Party; and that he is a celebrated 
 and very successful author. His reply came 
 this morning : 
 
 " ' Grosvenor Gate. 
 
 "<DEAR SIR, 
 
 " ' The great pressure of public affairs 
 at the present moment must be my excuse for 
 not sooner replying to your interesting letter, 
 which I did not like to leave to a secretary. 
 
 " ' I think the subject of your work of the 
 highest interest, and I should have confidence 
 in its treatment from the letter which you 
 have done me the honour of addressing to me. 
 I should recommend you to forward your MS. 
 to some eminent publisher whom interest and 
 experience would qualify to judge of it with 
 impartiality. 
 
 " 'Believe me, dear sir, 
 
 " ' With every good wish, 
 " ' Your faithful servant, 
 
 " ; B. DISRAELI.' 
 
 " A recognition like this from so great an 
 intellectual leader is a richer reward to one's self 
 than the applause of hundreds, or than any 
 money can possibly be. And it is a guarantee 
 
LETTERS FROM 1866 TO 1872. 89 
 
 of success, even in a money sense ; for what 
 publisher would not grasp at a work com- 
 mended by Disraeli ? This is a day of triumph 
 to me. In an obscure country village, per- 
 sonally totally unknown, name never heard of, 
 without the least assistance from any living 
 person, alone and unaided, I have achieved the 
 favourable opinion of the man who stands 
 highest in OUT age for intellectual power, who 
 represents the nobility, gentry, and clergy of 
 the land, who is the leader of half England. 
 This, too, after enduring the sneers and bitter 
 taunts of so many for idleness and incapacity. 
 Hard, indeed, have I worked these many 
 months since I last saw you, and at all times 
 it has been my intention and looked forward 
 to as a reward to write and tell you of my 
 success. And at last at last ! Write to me 
 and tell me you rejoice, for without someone 
 to rejoice with you, success itself is cold and 
 barren. My success is now assured. . . ." 
 
 A few days later he has to tell his aunt of 
 another brilliant success of the same shadowy 
 character. He calls it a "singular stroke of 
 
90 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 good fortune." One of the best publishing 
 houses in London had promised to consider 
 his new novel which of his new novels was 
 it ? carefully. 
 
 "I cannot help thinking that their ' full 
 consideration ' is a very promising phrase. I 
 really do think that I am now upon the thres- 
 hold of success. . . . The idea of writing the 
 book came to me by a kind of inspiration, and 
 not from study or thought. I am now en- 
 gaged upon a magazine article, which I think 
 will meet the taste of the public. Since 
 finishing the book, I have written a play which 
 can either be published or acted, as circum- 
 stances prove most propitious. I have also 
 sketched out a short tale, founded on fact, and 
 have sent the MS. of a history of Swindon to 
 the local paper, and expect a fair sum for it. 
 I am engaged to go to Gloucester next week 
 for a day perhaps two to report a trial. 
 So that you see I am not idle, and have my 
 hands as full as they can hold." 
 
 Quite as full as they can hold ; and all the 
 time he is drifting further and further from 
 
LETTERS FROM 1866 TO 1872. 91 
 
 the haven where he would be. Yet his fortune 
 lies at his feet, if he will but stoop to pick it 
 up. It lies in the hedges, and in the fields, 
 and woods ; it lies upon the hillside. He can 
 see it red as gold, flashing with the splendid 
 light of a million diamonds, if he will open his 
 eyes. But the time is not yet. 
 
 The firm of publishers declined, but in 
 courteous and even flattering terms, to publish 
 the work in question. The author at once made 
 up his mind that the book was not " in their 
 line," and sent the MS. to another firm. 
 
 The second firm apparently declined the 
 work ; but in another month the author 
 
 writes triumphantly that Messrs. are 
 
 going to publish it. Now nothing remains 
 but to settle the price. 
 
 " I cannot help," he says, " feeling this a 
 moment of great triumph, after so much op- 
 position from everyone. All my friends pro- 
 phesied failure, and when I refused to desist 
 from endeavouring, grew angry with me, and 
 annoyed me as much as possible. ... I will 
 let you know as soon as we have agreed upon 
 the price, and, of course, I shall have the 
 
92 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 pleasure of sending you some copies when 
 it appears." 
 
 Alas 1 he was mistaken, There was much 
 more than the remuneration to be settled 
 before the work was published ; in fact, it 
 never was published. 
 
 The last letter of the packet has no other 
 date than May 7. From internal evidence, 
 however, it must have been written in the 
 year 1873. 
 
 " I have just had a great disappointment. 
 After keeping the manuscript of my novel 
 
 more than two months, Mr. has 
 
 written to decline it. It really does seem 
 like Sisyphus just as one has rolled the 
 stone close to the top of the hill, down it 
 goes again, and all one's work has to be done 
 over again. For some time after I began 
 literary work I did not care in the least about 
 a failure, because I had a perpetual spring of 
 hope that the next would be more fortunate. 
 But now, after eight years of almost continual 
 failure, it is very hard indeed to make a fresh 
 effort, because there is no hope to sustain 
 
LETTERS FROM 1866 TO 1872. 93 
 
 one's expectations. Still, although I have 
 lost hope entirely, I am more than ever 
 determined to succeed, and shall never cease 
 trying till I do. 
 
 " It seems so singular to me that, although 
 publishers constantly decline my works, yet if 
 by any chance something that I have written 
 gets into print, everybody immediately ad- 
 mires it, so that it does not seem that there is 
 any want of ability. You remember those 
 letters in the Times ? They were declined by 
 one editor of a much less important paper. 
 The moment they were published everyone 
 admired them, and even the most adverse 
 critics allowed that the style and literary 
 execution was good. I could show you a 
 dozen clippings from adverse newspapers to 
 that effect. This is the reflection that sup- 
 ports me under so many disappointments, 
 because it seems to say that it is through no 
 fault of mine. Thinking over this very 
 deeply lately, and passing over in review 
 the facts and experience I have obtained 
 during the last eight years, I have come to 
 the conclusion that it is no use for me to 
 
94 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 waste further time in waiting for the decisions 
 of publishers, but that I ought to set to work 
 and publish on my own account. What, then, 
 shall I publish ? A novel costs some 60 or 
 80 at least. This I cannot possibly afford ; 
 I have no friends who can afford it. I ean 
 borrow, it is true, but that seems like putting 
 u noose round your own neck for some one 
 else to hang you with. But then many 
 authors have made a name and even large 
 sums of money by publishing very small 
 books. . . ." 
 
 He goes on to show in his sanguine way 
 how a little book is bound to bring in. a great 
 profit. 
 
 He then adds : 
 
 "... Having tried, therefore, every other 
 plan for succeeding, I have at last determined 
 to try this. Do you not think I am right ? 
 It is only risking a few pounds not like 60 
 or 80. The first little book I have selected 
 to issue is a compendium of reporting experi- 
 ence for the use of learners. It is almost 
 finished all but binding and the first copy 
 
LETTERS FROM 1866 TO 1872. 95 
 
 issued you shall see. It will be published by 
 J. Snow and Co., 2, Ivy Lane. 
 
 " Then with regard to Swindon. I have so 
 enlarged my account of it, and so enlarged the 
 account of the Goddard family, that I have 
 determined to publish the work in two parts. 
 First to issue the Goddard part, by which 
 means I shall not risk so much money, and 
 shall see how the thing takes. Besides, I 
 know that the Goddards would prefer it 
 done in that way. I estimate the cost of the 
 first part at about 10 ; and as the manuscript 
 has been completed and lying idle for nearly 
 three months, I should like to get it out at 
 once, but I do not like to give the order until I 
 have the cash to meet the bill. 
 
 " You have no idea of the wretched feeling 
 produced by incessant disappointment, and 
 the long, long months of weary waiting for 
 decisions without the least hope. . . ." 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 GLEAMS OF LIGHT. 
 
 WITH the year 1871 the early struggles of the 
 young writer came to an end. He had now 
 secured his position, such as it was, on the 
 local press As there are no further sugges- 
 tions of parental opposition, we may suppose 
 that this had now ceased. Parental opposition 
 generally gives way when the lad shows that 
 by following his own path he can maintain 
 himself. This Richard could now do. He 
 continued, however, to live at Coate, partly, 
 no doubt, for economy, and partly for conveni- 
 ence. His old friends point out the short cut 
 across the fields by which he was accustomed 
 to walk from Coate to the office of the paper. 
 Local enthusiasm, however, is proverbially 
 feeble in the case of the native prophet. 
 
GLEAMS OF LIGHT. 97 
 
 This grows up in the after - years. The 
 income which a young reporter on a small 
 country paper can make is very modest, and 
 the position is not one which commands the 
 highest respect. Yet many young fellows 
 are satisfied and happy in such a position, 
 because, though they are still at the bottom of 
 the ladder, their foot is planted on the rung, 
 and their hands are on the sides. Being rich, 
 therefore, in hope, he took the step which 
 naturally follows success he became engaged. 
 His fiancee was a daughter of the late Mr. 
 Andrew Baden, at that time occupying Day- 
 house Farm, adjacent to Coate. For the 
 present there could be no thought of marry- 
 ing, but they would wait till their hopes were 
 partly realized, and the golden shower should 
 begin. Now there were two instead of one 
 looking for the splendid triumph of the future. 
 A first instalment of success came the follow- 
 ing year, in November, 1872 a real, indis- 
 putable success a thing that brought money 
 and more work, and yet more work ; a thing 
 which, in the hands of a practical man, would 
 have brought work enough to last a lifetime. 
 
98 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 To Jefferies it /was better than this, because 
 it presently led him the wanderer in the 
 labyrinth of fruitless effort to the line in 
 which he was to make his reputation, and to 
 find his true success. Is there anything in 
 the world more truly delightful than the first 
 success in the career you have chosen and 
 ardently desire to adorn ? If one desires to 
 become an authority on any subject, to read 
 your own paper in a great magazine ; ixf one 
 desires to become a journalist, to have the 
 columns of a great paper opened to you ; if 
 one wishes to be a great novelist, to read the 
 reviews of your first work, and to be assured 
 that you are on the right track nothing in 
 the world surely can equal that blissful 
 moment. 
 
 It came to this pair, thus waiting and 
 hoping, in November, 1872, in this wise: 
 
 In the autumn of that year, the mind of the 
 nation was beginning to be exercised with the 
 subject of the relations of the farmer with the 
 agricultural labourer. Richard Jefferies, in- 
 spired, if any man ever was, with the thought 
 that he knew all about the subject, sat down 
 
GLEAMS OF LIGHT. 99 
 
 and wrote a long letter about " The Wiltshire 
 Labourer." This letter he sent first to a 
 certain London editor (name of the paper not 
 stated), who refused it. He then sent it to 
 the editor of the Times, who not only accepted 
 it and printed it, but had a leader written 
 upon it. Nor was this all. The letter called 
 forth many answers ; to these Jefferies replied 
 in two more letters. The subject was noticed 
 in the Pall Mall Gazette, in the Spectator, and 
 in other journals. We are not here concerned 
 with the results of the case Jefferies wrote 
 on the side of the tenant farmer. It is suffi- 
 cient to note the fact of the letters and 
 their immediate result namely, that Jefferies 
 sprang at one bound into the position of 
 an authority on things agricultural. He 
 dated the letters from Coate Farm, Swindon; 
 so that he probably appeared to the editor and 
 to the general public as a farmer, rather than 
 as a newspaper reporter. To the whole of his 
 after-life these letters were most important. 
 They denoted, though as yet he knew it not, an 
 entirely new departure. He was to experience 
 many a bitter disappointment over novels 
 
 72 
 
ioo THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 which he ought never to have written. 
 There were plenty of snubs and rubs in 
 store for him, as there are for every literary 
 man at every stage of his career. Snubs and 
 rubs are part of a profession which has an 
 advantage quite peculiar to itself, that every- 
 thing a man does is publicly commented upon 
 by his brother professors writing anonymously. 
 It is as if a clergyman's sermons should be 
 publicly and every week handled by brother 
 clergymen, or a doctor's cases by brothers 
 of the calling ; or as if a barrister's speeches 
 should be anonymously criticised by other 
 barristers. A man cannot make an ass of 
 himself in the profession, and expect that 
 nobody will notice it. Not at all ; the 
 greater the mess he makes, the more he will 
 hear of it. Now Jefferies poor man was 
 going to niake a big mess of two or three jobs 
 before he really found himself. 
 
 To be an authority on things agricultural 
 is to speak on behalf of what was then, and is 
 still, the most important interest of the whole 
 country ; to speak of agricultural labourers 
 and of tenant farmers is to speak of the best 
 

 GLEAMS OF LIGtifr > ' id* 
 
 blood of the country, the hope and stay of 
 Great Britain. Here was opened a chance 
 such as comes to few. If it had been properly 
 followed up, if it had fallen to a practical man, 
 there would have been perceived here an open 
 door leading to an honourable career, a safe 
 line, with a sufficient income. I mean that 
 any of our great newspapers would have been 
 glad to number on its staff, and to retain, one 
 who could write with knowledge on things 
 agricultural. Always, throughout the whole 
 of his life, Richard Jefferies wanted someone 
 to advise him, but never so much as at; this 
 moment. He had this splendid chance, and 
 he threw it away, not deliberately, but from 
 ignorance and want of aptitude in business. 
 
 Yet the letters mark a new departure, for 
 they made him write about the country. 
 Success was before him at last, though not 
 in the way he hoped. 
 
 The first letter to the Times was, for a 
 young man of twenty-four, a most remarkable 
 production. It was crammed with facts and 
 information. In point of style it was clear 
 and strong, without any faults of fine writing. 
 
102 TE&lFQF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 It would be taken I have no doubt at all 
 that the editor so received it as the letter of 
 a clear-headed, well-informed, middle-aged 
 Wiltshire farmer. He writes at full length, 
 covering two columns and a quarter of the 
 Times, in small print. The letter itself is so 
 curious, as giving an account of a condition of 
 things which has already greatly changed in 
 the sixteen years since it was written, that I 
 have placed it for preservation in an appendix 
 to this volume. The leader on the subject in 
 the Times of the same day thus sums up the 
 case: 
 
 " When so much is done for labourers by 
 an improved class of landlords and tenants, 
 and when it is evident that they cannot but 
 share the general advance of wages, what is it 
 that remains to be done ? There can be no 
 doubt about it, and we commend it to the 
 attention of the talkative gentlemen who are 
 making fine speeches and backing up the 
 labourer to a stand-up fight with his em- 
 ployer. It is the labourer himself who 
 wants improvement. He will do every- 
 
GLEAMS OF LIGHT. 103 
 
 thing for himself so very badly. He will 
 not show common- sense in his cottage if 
 it is his own choice or his clothing, or 
 his food, or in his general arrangements. 
 He will insist on poisoning the air of hi& 
 cottage, his well, or the stream that runs 
 past his door. He will not bestow half an 
 hour on some needful repair which he thinks 
 a landlord ought to do for him. He goes to 
 the worst market for his provisions, buying 
 everything on credit and in the smallest 
 quantities. He allows a waste that would 
 not be tolerated in wealthier households. 
 He will not second with home discipline 
 the efforts made to instruct his children at 
 the school. He will still permit it to be 
 almost impossible that his children shall be 
 taught in the same room or play in the same 
 ground with the children of his employer. In 
 a word, he will not do his part no easy one, 
 it is true, yet not impossible. He escapes 
 from thought, effort, and responsibility at the 
 village c public/ and lets his household go it? 
 way. Of course, he is only doing what many 
 of his betters are doing in his own class and 
 
104 THE EULQGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 condition. But there is the same to be said 
 of all. If men are to rise, it must be done by 
 themselves, for the whole world will never 
 raise, or better appreciably, those who will not 
 raise themselves." 
 
 You have already seen the letter written in 
 May, 1873, in which he speaks despairingly 
 of his efforts and his ill- success ; in fact, he 
 allowed a whole year to elapse without follow- 
 ing up the advantage and experience acquired 
 by these letters. It seems incredible. Mean- 
 while he was muddling his time, and perhaps 
 his money, in bringing out things from which 
 neither money nor honour could be expected. 
 The first of these was the little book I have 
 already noticed, on reporting and journalism. 
 It would be curious to learn the pecuniary 
 result of this volume. 
 
 The next volume was a " Family Histor}^ of 
 the Goddards of North Wilts." Now, if the 
 Goddards were anxious to have their history 
 written, they might have paid for it. Perhaps 
 they did pay for the work, but I find no record 
 of their doing so. Perhaps they thought that 
 
GLEAMS OF LIGHT. 105 
 
 S wind on would rally round the Goddard flag, 
 and eagerly buy the book. I have not read 
 the work ; but it had the honour of getting a 
 notice from the Athenceum, which the author 
 heroically cut out and preserved. The plain 
 truth was spoken in that notice, and the most 
 was made of a very unfortunate mistake of a 
 place, a date, and a poet, concerning which 
 the curious may consult the Athenaeum for the 
 year 1873. 
 
 The results of publishing at his own expense 
 were, we suppose, so satisfactory that Jefferies 
 in 1874 brought out his first novel "The 
 Scarlet Shawl" on that delightful method. 
 It is always in vain that one assures a young 
 writer that works which publishers with one 
 consent refuse must be commercially worthless ; 
 it is always in vain that one preaches, exhorts, 
 and implores the inexperienced not to throw 
 away their money in the vain hope of getting 
 it back with profit of gold and glory. They 
 will do it. There are always publishing 
 houses of a kind which are ready to print 
 young writers' crude and foolish works at 
 their own risk, and to talk vaguely before- 
 
io6 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 hand of enormous profits to be shared. Poor 
 wretches ! they never get any profits. No- 
 body ever buys any copies. There is never 
 for the unfortunate writer any gold or any 
 glory, but only sure, certain, and bitter dis- 
 appointment. 
 
 As yet, Jefferies still clung to his old ideas, 
 and had learned none of the lessons which the 
 Times letters should have taught him. There- 
 fore he brought out three novels in succession 
 (see Chapter VI.), never getting any single 
 advantage or profit out of them except the 
 pain of shattered hopes, the loss of money, and 
 the most contemptuous notices in the reviews. 
 
 We are in the year 1874. Apparently, 
 Jefferies has had his chance, and has thrown 
 it away. He is six-and-twenty years of age 
 it is youth, but this young man has only 
 twelve more years of life, and none of his work 
 has yet been done. Why why did no one 
 tear him away from his vain and futile efforts ? 
 See, he toils day after day, with an energy 
 which nothing can repress a resolution to 
 succeed which sustains him through all his 
 disappointments. He covers acres of paper, 
 
GLEAMS OF LIGHT. 107 
 
 and all to no purpose; for no one has told 
 him the simplest law of all that Art is imita- 
 tion. One must not close the shutters, light 
 the lamp, and then paint a flower one has 
 never seen, as the painter thinks it ought to 
 have been. Yet this is what Jefferies was 
 doing. The young country lad, who knew 
 no other society than that of the farm and the 
 country town, was wasting and spoiling his 
 life in writing about people and things whom 
 he imagined. He was painting the flower 
 he had never seen as he thought it ought 
 to be. 
 
 Well, the great success of the Times letters 
 seemed to have led to nothing. Yet it gave 
 him a better position in his native place. His 
 work was now so assured, and his income so 
 much improved though still slender enough 
 that in July, 1874, after a three years' en- 
 gagement, he was married. 
 
 For the first six months of their marriage 
 the young pair lived on at Coate. They then 
 removed to a small house in Victoria Street, 
 Swindon, where their first child was born. 
 It is a happy thing to think that it was in the 
 
loS THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 first year of his wedded life that Jefferies 
 brushed away the cobwebs from his brain, 
 left the old things behind him for ever, and 
 stepped out upon the greensward, the hill- 
 side, the forest, and the meadows, where he was 
 to walk henceforth until the end. It was time, 
 indeed, to throw away his novels of society, 
 to put away the unreal rubbish, to forget the 
 foolish dreams, to let the puppets who could 
 never have lived lie dust-covered in the limbo 
 of false and conventional novels. Where is it, 
 that limbo ? Welcome, long-desired flowers 
 of May ! Welcome, fragrant breath of the 
 breezy down ! 
 
CHAPTEE V. 
 
 FIRST YEARS OF SUCCESS. 
 
 JEFFERIES made his way to the fields through 
 the farmers first and the labourers next. 
 
 He wrote a paper for Fraser's Magazine 
 (December, 1873) on the "Future of Farm- 
 ing," which attracted a considerable amount 
 of attention. The Spectator had an article 
 upon it. The paper is full of bold speculations 
 and prophecies ; as, for instance : 
 
 " We. may, then, look to a time when farming 
 will become a commercial speculation, and will 
 be carried on by large joint- stock concerns, 
 issuing shares of ten, fifteen, or fifty pounds 
 each, and occupying from three to ten thousand 
 acres. Such companies would, perhaps, pur- 
 chase the entire sewage of an adjacent town. 
 Their buildings, their streets of cattle- stalls, 
 
no THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 would be placed on a slope sheltered from the 
 north-east, but near the highest spot on the 
 estate, so as to distribute manure and water 
 from their reservoirs by the power of gravita- 
 tion. A stationary steam-engine would crush 
 their cake, and pulp their roots, pump their 
 water, perhaps even shear their sheep. They 
 would employ butchers and others, a whole 
 staff, to kill and cut up bullocks in pieces suit- 
 able for the London market, transmitting their 
 meat straight to the salesman, without the 
 intervention of the dealer. That salesman 
 would himself be entirely in the employ of 
 the company, and sell no other meat but what 
 they supplied him with. This would at once 
 give a larger profit to the producer, and a 
 lower price (in comparison) to the public. In 
 summer, meat might be cooled by the ice- 
 house, or refrigerator, which must necessarily 
 be attached to the company's bacon factory. 
 Except in particular districts, it is hardly 
 probable that the dairy would be united with 
 the stock-farm ; but if so, the ice-house would 
 again come into requisition, and there would 
 be a condensed-milk factory on the premises." 
 
FIRST YEARS OF SUCCESS. in 
 
 This was going back to the right line. He 
 seems, however, to have done no more in this 
 line until August of the next year (the month 
 after his marriage), when he returned in 
 earnest to the rural life, and never after- 
 wards left it. His earliest and fastest friend 
 was Frasers Magazine, now, alas ! defunct. 
 But he was speedily engaged to write for 
 other papers and magazines. His real literary 
 life, in fact, may be said to begin at this period. 
 The " Farmer at Home " was the title of this 
 paper singled out by the Spectator as the best 
 of all the papers for the month. Here there 
 occurs a really striking passage on the 
 "Farmer's Creed." They live, says the 
 writer, amid conditions so unchanging that 
 they have acquired a creed of their own, which 
 they rarely express, never discuss, and never 
 fail to act upon. 
 
 " . . . In no other profession do the sons and 
 the daughters remain so long, and so naturally, 
 under the parental roof. The growth of half 
 a dozen strong sons was a matter of self-con- 
 gratulation, for each as he came to man's 
 
H2 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 estate took the place of a labourer, and so 
 reduced the money expenditure. The daughters 
 worked in the dairy, and did not hesitate to 
 milk occasionally, or, at least, to labour in the 
 hay-field. They spun, too, the home-made 
 stuffs in which all the family were clothed. 
 A man's children were his servants. They 
 could not stir a step without his permission. 
 Obedience and reverence to the parent was the 
 first and greatest of all virtues. Its influence 
 was to extend through life, and through the 
 whole social system. They were to choose 
 the wife or the husband approved of at home. 
 At thirty, perhaps, the more fortunate of the 
 sons were placed on farms of their own nomi- 
 nally, but still really under the father's control. 
 They dared not plough or sow except in the 
 way that he approved. Their expenditure 
 was strictly regulated by his orders. This 
 lasted till his death, which might not take 
 place for another twenty years. At the 
 present moment I could point out ten or 
 twelve such cases, where men of thirty or 
 forty are in farms, and to all appearance per- 
 fectly free and independent, and yet as com- 
 
FIRST YEARS OF SUCCESS. 113 
 
 pletely under the parental thumb as they were 
 at ten years old. . . These men, if they 
 think thus of their own offspring, cannot be 
 expected to be more tender towards the lower 
 class around them. They did at one time, 
 and some still wish to, extend the same system 
 to the labouring population. . . . They did 
 not want only to indulge in tyranny; what 
 they did was to rule the labouring poor in the 
 same way as they did their own children 
 nothing more nor less. These labouring men, 
 like his own children, must do as the farmer 
 thought best. They must live here or there, 
 marry so and so, or forfeit favour in short, 
 obey the parental head. Each farmer was 
 king in his own domain: the united farmers 
 of a parish were kings of the whole place. 
 They did not use the power circumstances 
 gave them harshly, but they paid very little 
 regard to the liberty of the subject. ... In 
 religion it is, or lately was, the same. It was 
 not a matter with the farmer of the Athanasian 
 Creed, or the doctrine of salvation by faith, or 
 any other theological dogma To him the 
 parish church was the centre of the social 
 
 8 
 
114 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 system of the parish. It was the keystone of 
 that parental plan of government that he be- 
 lieved in. The very first doctrine preached 
 from the pulpit was that of obedience. ' Honour 
 thy father and thy mother ' was inculcated 
 there every seventh day. His father went to 
 church, he went to church himself, and every- 
 body else ought to go. It was as much a 
 social gathering as the dinner at the market 
 ordinary, or the annual audit dinner of their 
 common landlord. The Dissenter, who de- 
 clined to pay Church-rates, was an unsocial 
 person. He had left the circle. It was not 
 the theology that they cared about, it was the 
 social nonconformity. In a spiritual sense, 
 too, the clergyman was the father of the parish, 
 the shepherd of the flock it was a part of 
 the great system. To go a step farther, in 
 political affairs the one leading idea still 
 threaded itself through all. The proper 
 Parliamentary representative the natural 
 law-giver was the landlord of the district. 
 He was born amongst them, walked about 
 amongst them, had been in their houses 
 many a time. He knew their wants, their 
 
FIRST YEARS OF SUCCESS. 115 
 
 ideas, their views. His own interest was 
 identical with theirs. Therefore he was the 
 
 man." 
 
 A third paper, called " John Smith's Shanty," 
 gave a picture of the agricultural labourer's 
 life. He here began, timidly at first, to leave 
 the regions of hard actual fact, and to venture 
 upon the higher flights of poetic and ideal 
 work, but poetry based upon the actual facts. 
 Yet not to leave altogether the journalistic 
 methods. Thus, he wrote for Fraser a paper on 
 " The Works at Swindon," which was simply 
 a newspaper descriptive article, and one on 
 "Allotment Gardens "for the New Quarterly 
 Review. This was like his "Future of Farming" 
 a wholly practical paper. One of the new 
 principles, he says, that is now gradually enter- 
 ing the minds of the masses, is a belief that each 
 individual has a right to a certain share in the 
 land of his birth. That was written twelve 
 years ago. Since that time this belief has 
 extended far and wide. There are now books 
 and papers which openly advocate the doctrine 
 that the land is the property of the people. It 
 
ii6 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 is no longer a question which is asked, an 
 answer which has to be whispered on account 
 of its great temerity: it is a doctrine openly 
 held and openly taught. But Jefferies was 
 the first to find it out. He heard the whisper 
 in the cottage and in the village ale-house; 
 the reeds beside the brook whispered it to him. 
 If, he thinks, every labouring man had his 
 allotment, he would cease to desire the general 
 division of the land. 
 
 " If it is possible to find ground near enough 
 to the residence of the population to be practi- 
 cally useful as cemeteries, there can be no 
 valid reason why spaces should not be avail- 
 able for a system of gardens. Numerous com- 
 panies have been formed for the purpose of 
 supplying the workmen with houses ; the 
 building societies and their estates are situated 
 outside the city, but within easy reach by rail. 
 Why should not societies exist and flourish for 
 the equally useful object of providing the work- 
 man with a garden? If the plan of universal 
 division of land were thoroughly carried out, 
 it follows that the cities would disappear, 
 
FIRST YEARS OF SUCCESS. 117 
 
 since, to obtain a bare living out of the four 
 acres, a man must live on or very near to it, 
 and spend his whole time in attending to it. 
 But the extent of allotment-ground which such 
 a society as this would provide for the work- 
 man must not be so large as to require any 
 more attention than he could pay to it in the 
 evening, or the Saturday afternoon, or at most 
 in a day or so of absence from his work. He 
 would have, of course, to go to his allotment 
 by rail, and rail costs money. But how many 
 thousands of workmen at this very hour go to 
 their work day by day by rail, and return 
 home at night; and the sum of money they 
 thus expend must collectively be something 
 enormous in the course of a year ! To work 
 his allotment he would have no necessity to 
 visit it every day, or hardly every week. Such 
 an allotment-ground must be under the direc- 
 tion of a proper staff of officers, for the distri- 
 bution of lots, the collection of rent, the pre- 
 vention of theft, and generally to maintain the 
 necessary order. Looked at in this light, the 
 extension of the allotment system to large 
 towns does not hold out any very great diffi- 
 
i IS THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEF-FERIES. 
 
 culties. The political advantage which would 
 accrue would be considerable, as a large section 
 of the population would feel that one at least 
 of their not altogether frivolous complaints 
 -was removed. As a pecuniary speculation, it 
 is possible that such a society would pay as 
 well as a building society; for the preliminary 
 expenses would be so small in comparison. A 
 building society has to erect blocks of houses 
 before it can obtain any return ; but merely to 
 plough, and lay out a few fields in regular 
 plots, and number them on a plan, is a light 
 task. If the rent was not paid, the society 
 could always seize the crops; and if the plot 
 was not cultivated in a given time, they might 
 have a rule by which the title to it should be 
 vacated. To carry the idea further, a small 
 additional payment per annum might make 
 the plot the tenant's own property. This 
 would probably act as a very powerful induce- 
 ment." 
 
 In the year 187-i he meditates a great work, 
 which he began but never finished, using up 
 his notes in after-years for what is really the 
 
FIRST YEARS OF SUCCESS. 119 
 
 same subject treated with more literary finish 
 and style than he had as yet acquired. He 
 proposes (May 20th) to Messrs. Longmans to 
 write a great book in two volumes on the 
 whole Land Question. The first volume he 
 proposes to call " Tenant and Labourer;" the 
 second, " Land and Landlord." He will deal, 
 he says, with the subject in an "impartial and 
 trenchant " manner, but still " with a slightly 
 conservative tone, so as to counsel moderation." 
 On June 8th he sends an instalment of two 
 hundred manuscript folios, proposing that the 
 first volume shall be called " The Agricultural 
 Life." The chapters are to be as follows : 
 
 I. The Creed of the Agriculturist. 
 II. The Agriculturist at Home. 
 
 III. Agriculture as a Business. 
 
 IV. Summary of the Farmer's Case. 
 V. The Labourer's Daily Life. 
 
 VI. The Labourer's Case. 
 VII. The Gist of the Whole Matter. 
 
 This proposal never came to anything; but 
 the subject-matter was abundantly treated by 
 Jefferies later on. Most of the chapters will 
 
120 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 be found in " Hodge and his Masters." So 
 far, he is still, it will be observed, the practical 
 man. Whatever feeling he has for the poetry 
 of Nature, he has as yet found little expression 
 of it. He next wrote a paper on "Field-faring 
 Women " for Fraser. He also wrote a most 
 delightful article for the Graphic on the same 
 subject, in which the truth is told about these 
 women. This was the very first paper written 
 in his later and better style : 
 
 " Those who labour in the fields require no 
 calendar, no carefully-compiled book of refer- 
 ence to tell them when to sow and when to 
 reap, to warn them of the flight of time. The 
 flowers, blooming and fading, mark the months 
 with unfailing regularity. When the sweet 
 violet may be found in warm sheltered nooks, 
 and the sleepy snake first crawls out from 
 under the brown leaves, then it is time to 
 gather the couch or roots after the plough, 
 and to hoe the young turnips and swedes. 
 This is the first work of the year for the agri- 
 cultural women. It is not a pleasant work. 
 Everyone who has walked over a ploughed 
 
FIRST YEARS OF SUCCESS. 121 
 
 field remembers how the hoots were clogged 
 with the adhesive clay, and how the continuous 
 ridges and furrows impeded progress. These 
 women have to stoop and gather up the white 
 couch-roots, and the other weeds, and place 
 them in heaps to be burnt. The spring is not 
 always soft and balmy. There comes one 
 lovely day, when the bright sunlight en- 
 courages the buds and peeping leaves to 
 push out, and then follows a week or more 
 of the harsh biting east wind. The arable 
 field is generally devoid of hedges or trees to 
 break the force of the weather, and the couch- 
 pickers have to withstand its cutting rush in 
 the open. . . . 
 
 " The cold clods of earth numb the fingers 
 as they search for the roots and weeds. The 
 damp clay chills the feet through thick-nailed 
 boots, and the back grows stiff with stooping. 
 If the poor woman suffers from the rheumatism 
 so common among the labouring class, such a 
 day as this will make every bone in her body 
 ache. When at last four o'clock comes, she 
 has to walk a mile or two miles to her cottage 
 and prepare her husband's supper. In hilly 
 
122 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 districts, where sheep are the staple production, 
 it follows, of course, that turnips and swedes, 
 as their food, are the most important crop. 
 Upon the unenclosed open downs the cold 
 of early spring is intense, and the women who 
 are engaged in hoeing feel it bitterly. Down 
 in the rich fertile valleys, in the meadows, 
 women are at work picking up the stones out 
 of the way of the scythe, or beating clots about 
 with a short prong. All these are wretched 
 tasks, especially the last, and the remunera- 
 tion for exposure and handling dirt very small. 
 But now 'green grow the rushes,' and the 
 cuckoo-flower thrusts its pale petals up among 
 the rising grass. Till that grass reaches 
 maturity, the women in meadow districts 
 can find no field employment. The woods 
 are now carpeted with acres upon acres of 
 the wild hyacinth, or blue-bell, and far sur- 
 pass in loveliness the most cultivated garden. 
 The sheen of the rich deep blue shows like a 
 lake of colour, in which the tall ash poles 
 stand, and in the sunset each bell is tinged 
 with purple. The nightingale sings in the 
 hazel-copse, or on the hawthorn bough, both 
 
FIRST YEARS OF SUCCESS. 123 
 
 day and night, and higher up, upon the downs, 
 the skies are full of larks carolling at c Heaven's 
 gate/ But the poor woman hears them not. 
 She has no memories of poetry; her mind can 
 call up no beautiful thoughts to associate with 
 the flower or the bird. She can sign her name 
 in a scrawling hand, and she can spell through 
 simple print, but to all intents and purposes 
 she is completely ignorant. Therefore, she 
 cannot see, that is, appreciate or feel, the 
 beauty with which she is surrounded. Yet, 
 despite the harsh, rude life she leads, there 
 works up to the surface some little instinctive 
 yearning after a higher condition. The yellow 
 flowers in the cottage-garden why is it that 
 cottagers are so fond of yellow? the gilly- 
 flower, the single stock, marigolds, and such 
 old-fashioned favourites, show a desire for orna- 
 ment; still more so the occasional geranium 
 in the window, specially tended by the wife." 
 
 Later on he returns to the subject, and 
 relates the story of Dolly most mournful, most 
 tragic, full of tears and pity. 
 
 He now began to alternate his practical 
 
124 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 and his poetical papers. For the Mark Lane 
 Express he wrote on "Village Organization"; 
 for the Standar d on "The Cost of Agricultural 
 Labour"; for the Fortnightly on the "Power 
 of the Farmer." Between these papers he 
 wrote on " Marlborough Forest," on " Village 
 Churches," and on the " Average of Beauty. " 
 The first of these three articles already 
 reached almost the highest level of his better 
 style. Even for those who have never wan- 
 dered in this great and wonderful forest, the 
 paper is wholly charming, while to those who 
 know the place, it is full of memories and 
 regrets that one has seen so little of all that 
 this man saw. 
 
 " The great painter Autumn has just touched 
 with the tip of his brush a branch of the beech- 
 tree, here and there leaving an orange spot, 
 and the green acorns are tinged with a faint 
 yellow. The hedges, perfect mines of beauty, 
 look almost red from a distance, so innumer- 
 able are the peggles. Let not the modern 
 Goths destroy our hedges, so typical of an 
 English landscape, so full of all that can de- 
 light the eye and please the mind. Spare them 
 
FIRST YEARS OF SUCCESS. 125 
 
 if only for the sake of the ' days when we went 
 gipsying a long time ago' spare them for 
 the children to gather the flowers of May and 
 the blackberries of September. When the 
 orange spot glows upon the beech, then the 
 nuts are ripe, and the hawthorn -bushes are 
 hung with festoons of the buff- coloured, heart- 
 shaped leaves of a once-green creeper. That 
 ' deepe and enclosed country of Northe Wiltes/ 
 which old Clarendon, in his famous c Civill 
 Warre/ says the troops of King Charles had 
 so much difficulty to hurry through, is pleasant 
 to those who can linger by the wayside and 
 the copse, and do not fear to hear the ordnance 
 make the ' woods ring again/ though to this 
 day a rusty old cannon-ball may sometimes be 
 found under the dead brown leaves of Aid- 
 bourne Chase where the skirmish took place 
 before 'Newbury Battle. 7 Perhaps it is 
 because no such deadly outbursts of human 
 passions have swept along beneath its trees 
 that the ' Forest ' is unsung by the poet, and 
 unvisited by the artist. Yet its very name 
 is poetical, Savernake, i.e., savernesacre like 
 the God's acre of Longfellow. Saverne a 
 
126 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 peculiar species of sweet fern ; acre land. 
 So we may call it Fern-land Forest, and with 
 truth, for but one step beneath those beeches 
 away from the path plunges us to our shoulders 
 in an ocean of bracken. The yellow stalks, 
 stout and strong as wood, make walking 
 through the brake difficult, and the route 
 pursued devious, till from the constant turn- 
 ing and twisting the way is lost. For this is 
 no narrow copse, but a veritable forest in 
 which it is easy to lose one's self; and the 
 stranger who attempts to pass it away from 
 the beaten track must possess some of the 
 Indian instinct which sees signs and direc- 
 tions in the sun and wind, in the trees and 
 humble plants of the ground. And this is its 
 great charm. The heart has a yearning for 
 the unknown, a longing to penetrate the deep 
 shadow and the winding glade, where, as it 
 seems, no human foot has been. High over 
 head in the beech -tree the squirrel peeps down 
 from behind a bough his long bushy tail 
 curled up over his back, and his bright eyes 
 full of mischievous cunning. Listen, and you 
 will hear the tap, tap of the woodpecker, and 
 
FIRST YEARS OF SUCCESS. 127 
 
 see, away he goes in undulating flight with a 
 wild, unearthly chuckle, his green and gold 
 plumage glancing in the sun, like the parrots 
 of far-distant lands. He will alight in some 
 open space upon an ant-hill, and lick up the 
 red insects with his tongue. In the fir-tree, 
 there, what a chattering and fluttering of gaily - 
 painted wings three or four jays are quarrel- 
 ling noisily. These beautiful birds are slain 
 by scores because of their hawk-like capacities 
 for destruction of game, and because of the 
 delicate colours of their feathers, which are 
 used in fly-fishing. There darts across the 
 glade a scared rabbit, straining each little limb 
 for speed, almost rushing against us, a greater 
 terror overcoming the less. In a moment 
 there darts forth from the dried grass a fierce 
 red-furred hunter, a very tiger to the rabbit 
 tribe, with back slightly arched, bounding 
 along, and sniffing the scent. Another, and 
 another, still a fourth a whole pack of stoats 
 (elder brothers of the smaller weasels). In 
 vain will the rabbit trust to his speed, these 
 untiring w r olves will overtake him. In vain 
 will he turn and double, their unerring noses 
 
128 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 will find him out. In vain the tunnels of the 
 c bury/ they will come as surely under ground 
 as above. At last, weaned, panting, frightened 
 almost to death, the timid creature will hide 
 in a cul-de-sac, a hole that has no outlet, bury- 
 ing its head in the sand. Then the tiny blood- 
 hounds will steal with swift, noiseless rush, 
 and fasten upon the veins of the neck. What 
 a rattling the wings of the pigeons make as 
 they rise out of the trees in hot haste and 
 alarm! As we pass a fir-copse, we stoop 
 down and look along the ground under the 
 foliage. The sharp c needles,' or leaves, which 
 fall will not decay, and they kill all vegetation, 
 so that there is no underwood or herbage to 
 obstruct the view. It is like looking into a 
 vast cellar supported upon innumerable slender 
 columns. The pheasants run swiftly away 
 underneath. High up the cones are ripening 
 those mysterious emblems sculptured in the 
 hands of the gods at Nineveh, perhaps typify- 
 ing the secret of life. More bracken. What 
 a strong, tall fern ! it is like a miniature tree. 
 So thick is the cover, a thousand archers might 
 lie hid in it easily. In this wild solitude, 
 
FIRST YEARS OF SUCCESS. 129 
 
 utterly separated from civilization, the whistle 
 of an arrow would not surprise us the shout 
 of a savage before he hurled his spear would 
 seem natural, and in keeping. What are those 
 strange clattering noises, like the sound of 
 men fighting with wooden ' back-swords'? 
 Now it is near now far off a spreading 
 battle seems to be raging all round, but the 
 combatants are out of sight. But, gently 
 step lightly, and avoid placing the foot on 
 dead sticks, which break with a loud crack 
 softly peep round the trunk of this noble oak, 
 whose hard furrowed bark defends it like 
 armour. The red deer ! Two splendid stags 
 are fighting, fighting for their lady-love, the 
 timid doe. They rush at each other with head 
 down and horns extended the horns meet 
 and rattle they fence with them skilfully. 
 This was the cause of the noise. It is the 
 tilting season these tournaments between the 
 knights of the forest are going on all around. 
 There is just a trifle of danger in approaching 
 these combatants, but not much, just enough 
 to make the forest still more enticing; none 
 whatever to those who use common caution. 
 
 9 
 
130 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 At the noise of our footsteps away go the 
 stags, their ' branching antlers ' seen high 
 above the tall fern, bounding over the 
 ground in a series of jumps, all four feet 
 leaving the earth at once. There are im- 
 mense oaks that we come to now, each with 
 an open space beneath it where Titania and 
 the fairies may dance their rings at night. 
 These enormous trunks what time they re- 
 present ! To us each hour is of consequence, 
 especially in this modern day which has in- 
 vented the detestable creed that time is money. 
 But time is not money to Nature. She never 
 hastens. Slowly from the tiny acorn grew up 
 this gigantic trunk, and spread abroad those 
 limbs which in themselves are trees. And 
 from the trunk itself, to the smallest leaf, every 
 infinitesimal atom of which it is composed 
 was perfected slowly, gradually there was no 
 hurry, no attempt to discount effect. A little 
 farther, and the ground declines; through the 
 tall fern we come upon a valley. But the soft 
 warm sunshine, the stillness, the solitude have 
 induced an irresistible idleness. Let us lie 
 down upon the fern, on the edge of the green 
 
FIRST YEARS OF SUCCESS. 131 
 
 vale, and gaze up at the slow clouds as they 
 drift across the blue vault. The subtle influ- 
 ence of nature penetrates every limb and every 
 vein, fills the soul with a perfect contentment, 
 an absence of all wish except to lie there half 
 in sunshine, half in shade for ever, in a 
 Nirvana of indifference to all but the ex- 
 quisite delight of simply living. The wind 
 in the tree-tops overhead sighs in soft music, 
 and ever and anon a leaf falls with a slight 
 rustle to mark the time. The clouds go by 
 in rhythmic motion, the ferns whisper verses in 
 the ear, the beams of the wondrous sun pour 
 in endless song, for he also 
 
 /"In his motion like an angel sings, 
 
 Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubim, 
 Such harmony is in immortal souls !' 
 
 Time is to us now no more than it was to 
 the oak ; we have no consciousness of it. Only 
 we feel the broad earth beneath us, and as to 
 the ancient giant, so there passes through us 
 a sense of strength renewing itself, of vital 
 energy flowing into the frame. It may be an 
 hour, it may be two hours, when without the 
 aid of sound or sight we become aware by an 
 
 92 
 
132 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 indescribable supersensuous perception that 
 living creatures are approaching. Sit up 
 without noise and look there is a herd of 
 deer feeding down the narrow valley close at 
 hand within a stone's-throw. And these are 
 deer indeed, no puny creatures, but the ' tall 
 deer ' that William the Conqueror loved ' as if 
 he were their father.' Fawns are darting here 
 and there, frisking round the does. How 
 many may there be in this herd? fifty, 
 perhaps more ; nor is this a single isolated 
 instance, but dozens more of such herds may 
 be found in this true old English forest, all 
 running free and unconstrained. But the sun 
 gets low. Following this broad green drive, 
 it leads us past vistas of endless glades going 
 no man knows where into shadow and gloom, 
 past grand old oaks, past places where the 
 edge of a veritable wilderness comes up to the 
 trees a wilderness of gnarled hawthorn trunks 
 of unknown ages, of holly with shining metallic- 
 green leaves, and hazel-bushes. Past tall trees 
 bearing the edible chestnut in prickly clusters, 
 past maples which in a little while will be 
 painted in crimson and gold, with the deer 
 
FIRST YEARS OF SUCCESS. 133 
 
 peeping out of the fern everywhere, and once 
 perhaps catching a glimpse of a shy, beautiful 
 milk-white doe. . . . Still onward, into a gravel 
 carriage-road now, returning by degrees to 
 civilization, and here with happy judgment 
 the hand of man has aided nature. Far as 
 the eye can see extends an avenue of beech, 
 passing right through the forest. The tall 
 smooth trunks rise up to a great height, and 
 then branch overhead, looking like the roof of 
 a Gothic cathedral. The growth is so regular 
 and so perfect that the comparison springs un- 
 bidden to the lip, and here, if anywhere, that 
 order of architecture might have taken its' in- 
 spiration. There is a continuous Gothic arch of 
 green for miles, beneath which one may drive or 
 walk as in the aisles of a forest-abbey.- But 
 it is impossible to even mention all the beauties 
 of this place within so short a space. It must 
 suffice to say that the visitor may walk, for 
 whole days in this great wood, and never pass 
 the same spot twice. No gates or jealous walls 
 will bar his progress. As the fancy seizes him 
 so he may wander. If he has a taste for 
 archaeological studies, especially the pre- 
 
134 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 historic, the edge of the forest melts away 
 upon downs that bear grander specimens than 
 can be seen elsewhere Stonehenge and Ave- 
 bury are near. The trout-fisher can approach 
 very close to it. The rail gives easy com- 
 munication, but has not spoilt the seclusion. 
 Monsieur Lesseps, of Suez Canal fame, is 
 reported to have said that Marlborough 
 Forest was the finest he had seen in Europe. 
 Certainly no one who had not seen it would 
 believe that a forest still existed in the very 
 heart of Southern England, so completely 
 recalling those woods and * chases ' upon 
 which the ancient feudal monarchs set such 
 store." 
 
 In the paper called " Village Churches," 
 Jefferies has wholly found himself at last. 
 Everybody has felt the charm of the village 
 church. The most careless pedestrian turns 
 by instinct into the old churchyard, and hopes 
 to find the church-door open. It is not the 
 architecture that he cares to study, but the 
 feeling of holy peace which lingers in the 
 place, like the glory between the Cherubim. 
 Let Jefferies interpret for us: 
 
FIRST YEARS OF SUCCESS. 135 
 
 " The black rooks are busy in the old oak- 
 trees carrying away the brown acorns one by 
 one in their strong beaks to some open place 
 where, undisturbed, they can feast upon the 
 fruit. The nuts have fallen from the boughs, 
 and the mice garner them out of the ditches; 
 but the blue- black sloes cling tight to the 
 thorn-branch still. The first frost has withered 
 up the weak sap left in the leaves, and they 
 whirl away in yellow clouds before the gusts 
 of wind. It is the season, the hour of half- 
 sorrowful, half-mystic thought, when the Past 
 becomes a reality, and the Present a dream, 
 and unbidden memories of sunny days and 
 sunny faces, seen when life was all spring, 
 float around: 
 
 " * Dim dream-like forms ! your shadowy train 
 Around me gathers once again ; 
 The same as in life's morning hour, 
 Before my troubled gaze you passed. 
 
 # # * 
 
 Forms known in happy days you bring, 
 And much-loved shades amid you spring, 
 Like a tradition, half-expired, 
 Worn out with many a passing year.' 
 
 " In so busy a land as ours, there is no 
 place where the mind can, as it were, turn in 
 
136 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 upon itself so fully as in the silence and 
 solitude of a village church. There is no 
 ponderous vastness, no oppressive weight of 
 gloomy roof, no weird cavernous crypts, as in 
 the cathedral; only a visible silence, which at 
 once isolates the soul, separates it from ex- 
 ternal present influences, and compels it, in 
 falling back upon itself, to recognise its own 
 depth and powers. In daily life we sit as in 
 a vast library filled with tomes, hurriedly 
 writing frivolous letters upon ' vexatious 
 nothings,' snatching our food and slumber, 
 for ever rushing forward with beating pulse, 
 never able to turn our gaze away from the 
 goal to examine the great storehouse the 
 library around us. Upon the infinitely deli- 
 cate organization of the brain innumerable 
 pictures are hourly painted; these, too, we 
 hurry by, ignoring them, pushing them back 
 into oblivion. But here, in silence, they pass 
 again before the gaze. Let no man know for 
 what real purpose we come here; tell the aged 
 clerk our business is with brasses and inscrip- 
 tions, press half-a-crown into his hand, and let 
 him pass to his potato-digging. There is one 
 
FIRST YEARS OF SUCCESS. 137 
 
 advantage, at least, in the closing of the church 
 on week-days, so much complained of to 
 those who do visit it there is a certainty that 
 their thoughts will not be disturbed. And the 
 sense of man's presence has departed from the 
 walls and oaken seats; the dust here is not 
 the dust of the highway, of the quick footstep; 
 it is the dust of the past. The ancient heavy 
 key creaks in the cumbrous lock, and the iron 
 latch-ring has worn a deep groove in the solid 
 stone. The narrow nail- studded door of black 
 oak yields slowly to the push it is not easy 
 to enter, not easy to quit the Present but 
 once close it, and the living world is gone. 
 The very style of ornament upon the door 
 the broad-headed nails has come down from 
 the remotest antiquity. After the battle, says 
 the rude bard in the Saxon chronicle, 
 
 " ' The Northmen departed 
 In their nailed barks,' 
 
 and earlier still the treacherous troop that 
 seized the sleeping magician in iron, Wayland 
 the Smith, were clad in ' nailed armour/ in 
 both instances meaning ornamented with nails. 
 
138 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFER1ES. 
 
 Incidentally it ma} 7 be noted that until very 
 recently at least one village church in England 
 had part of the skin of a Dane nailed to the 
 door a stern reminder of the days when 
 ' the Pagans ' harried the land. This narrow 
 window, deep in the thick wall, has no painted 
 magnificence to boast of, but as you sit beside 
 it in the square high- sided pew, it possesses a 
 human interest which even art cannot supply. 
 The tall grass growing rank on the graves 
 without rustles as it waves to and fro in the 
 wind against the small diamond panes, yellow 
 and green with age rustles with a melancholy 
 sound, for we know that this window was 
 once far above the ground, but the earth has 
 risen till nearly on a level; risen from the ac- 
 cumulation of human remains. Yet but a day 
 or two before, on the Sunday morning, in this 
 pew, bright restless children smiled at each 
 other, exchanged guilty pushes, while the sun- 
 beams from the arrow- si it above shone upon 
 their golden hair. Let us not think of this 
 further. But dimly through the window, ' as 
 through a glass darkly/ see the green yew 
 with its red berries, and afar the elms and 
 
FIRST YEARS OF SUCCESS. 139 
 
 beeches, brown and yellow. The steep down 
 rises over them, and the moving gray patch 
 upon it is a flock of sheep. The white wall is 
 cold and damp, and the beams of the roof 
 overhead, though the varnish is gone from 
 them, are dank with slow decay. In the 
 recess lies the figure of a knight in armour, 
 rudely carved, beside his lad} 7 , still more 
 rudely rendered in her stiff robes, and of 
 him an ill-spelt inscription proudly records 
 that he ' builded ye greate howse at ' no 
 matter where but history records that cruel 
 war wrapped it in flames before half a genera- 
 tion was gone. So that the boast of his build- 
 ing great houses reads as a bitter mockery. 
 There stands opposite a grander monument to 
 a mighty earl, and over it hangs a breastplate, 
 and gauntlets of steel. The villagers will tell 
 that in yonder deep shady * combe ' or valley, 
 in the thick hazel-bushes, when the l beetle 
 with his drowsy htfm ' rises through the night 
 air, there comes the wicked old earl wearing 
 this very breastplate, these iron gloves, to 
 expiate one evil deed of yore. And if we 
 sit in this pew long enough, till the mind is 
 
140 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 magnetized with the spirit of the past, till the 
 early evening sends its shadowy troops to fill 
 the distant corners of the silent church, then 
 perhaps there may come to us forms gliding 
 noiselessly over the stone pavement of the 
 aisles forms not repelling or ghastly, but 
 filling us with an eager curiosity. Then 
 through the slit made for that very purpose 
 centuries since, when the pew was in a family 
 chapel, through the slit in the pillar, we may 
 see cowled monks assemble at the altar, mut- 
 tering as magicians might over vessels of gold. 
 The clank of scabbards upon the stones is 
 stilled, the rustle of gowns is silent ; if there 
 is a sound it is of subdued sobs, as the aged 
 monk blesses the troop on the eve of their 
 march. Not even yet has the stern idol of 
 war ceased to demand its victims ; even yet 
 brave hearts and noble minds must perish, and 
 leave sterile the hopes of the elders and the 
 love of woman. There is still light enough 
 left to read the few simple lines on the plain 
 
 marble slab, telling how ' Lieutenant ,' 
 
 at Inkerrnan, at Lucknow, or later still, at 
 Coomassie, fell doing his duty. And these 
 

 FIRST YEARS OF SUCCESS. 141 
 
 plain slabs are dearer to us far than all the 
 sculptured grandeur, all the titles and pomp 
 of belted earl and knight: their simple words 
 go straighter to our hearts than all the quaint 
 curt Latin of the olden time. The belfry-door 
 is ajar these winding- stairs are not easy of 
 access. The edges are worn away, and the 
 steps strewn with small sticks of wood; sticks 
 once used by the jackdaws in building their 
 nests in the tower. It is needful to take much 
 care, lest the foot should stumble in the semi- 
 darkness. Listen! there is now a slight sound; 
 it is the dull ticking of the old, old clock above. 
 It is the only thing with motion here; all else 
 is still, and even its motion is not life. A 
 strange old clock; a study in itself; all the 
 works open and visible, simple, but ingenious. 
 For a hundred years it has carried round the 
 one hour-hand upon the square-faced dial 
 without, marking every second of time for 
 a century with its pendulum. Here, too, are 
 the bells, and one, the chief bell, is a noble 
 tenor, a mighty maker of sound. Its curves 
 are full and beautiful, its colour clear, its tone, 
 if you do but tap it, sonorous, yet not harsh. 
 
142 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 It is an artistic bell. Round the rim runs a 
 rhyme in the monkish tongue, which has a 
 chime in the words, recording the donor, and 
 breathing a prayer for his soul. In the days 
 when this bell was made men put their souls 
 into their works; their one great object was 
 not to turn out a hundred thousand all alike : 
 it was rarely they made two alike. Their one 
 great object was to construct a work which 
 should carry their very spirit in it, which 
 should excel all similar works, and cause men 
 in after-times to inquire with wonder for the 
 maker's name, whether it was such a common 
 thing as a knife- handle, or a bell, or a ship. 
 Longfellow has caught the spirit well in the 
 Saga of the ' Long Serpent/ where the builder 
 of the vessel listens to axe and hammer 
 
 " ' All this tumult heard the master, 
 
 It was music to his ear ; 
 Fancy whispered all the faster, 
 " Men shall hear of Thorberg Skaf ting 
 
 For a hundred year !" ' 
 
 Would that there were more of this spirit in 
 the workshops of our day! They did not, 
 when such a work was finished, hasten to 
 
FIRST YEARS OF SUCCESS. 143 
 
 blaze it abroad with trumpet and shouting; 
 it was not carried to the topmost pinnacle of 
 the mountain, in sight of all the kingdoms of 
 the earth. They were contented with the 
 result of their labour, and cared little where 
 it was placed, or who saw it; and so it is that 
 some of the finest-toned bells in the world are 
 at this moment to be found in village churches, 
 and for so local a fame the maker worked as 
 truly, and in as careful a manner, as if he had 
 known his bell was to be hung in St. Peter's 
 at Rome. This was the true spirit of art. Yet 
 it is not altogether pleasant to contemplate 
 this bell; the mind cannot but reflect upon 
 the length of time it has survived those to 
 whose joys or sorrows it has lent a passing 
 utterance, and who are now dust in the yard 
 beneath. 
 
 " ' For full five hundred years I've swung 
 
 In my old gray turret high, 
 And many a changing theme I've sung 
 As the time went stealing by.' 
 
 Even the ' old gray turret ' shows more 
 signs of age and of decay than the bell, for it 
 is strengthened with iron clamps and rods to 
 
144 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 bind its feeble walls together. Of the pave- 
 ments, whose flag-stones are monuments, the 
 dates and names worn by footsteps ; of the 
 vaults beneath, with their grim and ghastly 
 traditions of coffins moved out of place, as was 
 supposed, by supernatural agency, but, as ex- 
 plained, by water; of the thick walls in which, 
 in at least one village church, the trembling 
 victim of priestly cruelty was immured alive 
 of these, and a thousand other matters that 
 suggest themselves, there is no time to speak. 
 But just a word must be spared to notice one 
 lovely spot where two village churches stand 
 not a hundred yards apart, separated by a 
 stream, both in the hands of one vicar, whose 
 1 cure ' is, nevertheless, so scant of souls, that 
 service in the morning in one, and in the even- 
 ing in the other church, is amply sufficient. 
 And where is there a place where spring-time 
 possesses such a tender yet melancholy interest 
 to the heart, as in a village churchyard, where 
 the budding leaves, and flowers in the grass, 
 may naturally be taken as symbolical of a still 
 more beautiful spring-time yet in store for the 
 soul?" 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 FICTION, EARLY AND LATE. 
 
 THERE lies before me a roll containing certain 
 newspaper extracts pasted on paper and sewed 
 together. They are cuttings from the North- 
 Wilts Herald, and contain a romance, entitled 
 " A Strange Story," written ''expressly" for 
 that paper, and signed " Geoffrey." That 
 Geoffrey let us reveal a long-buried secret 
 was none other than Richard Jefferies him- 
 self. The " Strange Story " was published on 
 June 30, 1866. It is blood-curdling; it is, 
 in foct, the work of a boy. Between July 21 
 and August 4 of the same year, a second tale 
 appeared by the same author; it is called 
 " Henrique Beaumont." There is a murder 
 in it, and, of course, a murderer. Lightning 
 sign of Heaven's wrath reveals that the 
 
 10 
 
146 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 murderer's face, after the deed, is as pale as 
 death. A third tale is called " Who Will Win ? 
 or, American Adventure." There is fighting 
 in it, with negroes, hairbreadth escapes, and 
 such things, in breathless succession. A fourth 
 and last tale is called "Masked." These boyish 
 efforts are only mentioned here to show in 
 what direction the lad's thoughts were running. 
 Considered as a lad's productions, they require 
 no comment. At the outset, Jefferies proposed 
 fiction to himself as the most desirable form 
 of literature, and the most likely form with 
 which to court success. Almost to the end 
 he continued to keep this ambition before him- 
 self. The list of his serious attempts at fiction 
 is respectable as regards number. It includes 
 the following: 
 
 " The Scarlet Shawl," one vol., 1874. 
 " Eestless Human Hearts," three vols., 1875. 
 " World's End," three vols., 1877. 
 " Green Fern Farm," three vols., 1880. 
 " The Dewy Morn," two vols., 1884. 
 if " Amaryllis at the Fair," one vol., 1887. 
 
 To these may be added but they must be 
 
FICTION, EARLY AND LATE. 147 
 
 treated separately " Wood Magic," a fable, 
 1881, and " Bevis," three vols., 1882. Perhaps 
 " After London " may also be accounted a 
 work of fiction. 
 
 " The Scarlet Shawl " was published in 
 July, 1874, in one volume. As the work 
 is stated on the title-page to have advanced 
 to a second edition, one of two things is certain 
 namely, either the book appealed to a large 
 number of readers, or the editions were very 
 small indeed. I incline, myself, to the latter 
 opinion. 
 
 Great as is the admiration of Jefferies' 
 readers for his best and noblest work, it must 
 be frankly confessed that, regarded as a story- 
 teller, he is not successful. Why this is so 
 we will presently inquire. As regards this, 
 his earliest serious work of fiction, there is 
 one remarkable fact, quite without precedent 
 in the history of literature it is that the book 
 affords not the slightest indication of genius, 
 insight, descriptive or dramatic power, or, 
 indeed, of any power, especially of that kind 
 with which he was destined to make his name. 
 
 102 
 
148 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 It is a book which any publisher's reader, 
 after glancing at the pages, would order to be 
 returned instantly, without opinion given or 
 explanation offered ; it is a book which a 
 young man of such real promise, with such 
 a splendid career before him, ought somehow 
 to have been prevented from publishing. Two 
 reviews of it are preserved in a certain book of 
 extracts one from the Athenaum, and one 
 from the Graphic. The story was also made 
 a peg by a writer in the Globe for some un- 
 kind remarks about modern fiction generally. 
 It is only mentioned here because we would 
 not be accused of suppressing facts, and because 
 there is no author who has not made similar 
 false starts, mistakes, and attempts in lines 
 unsuited to his genius. It is not much blame 
 to Jefferies that his first novel was poor; it 
 was his misfortune that no one told him at the 
 outset that a book of which the author has 
 to pay the expense of production is probably 
 worthless. It is, perhaps, wonderful that the 
 author could possibly think it good. There 
 are, one imagines, limits even to an author's 
 illusions as regards his own work. But it is 
 
FICTION, EARLY AND LATE. 149 
 
 not so wonderful that Jefferies should at this 
 time, when he was still quite young and 
 ignorant of the world, write a worthless book, 
 as that he should at any time at all write 
 a book which had not the least touch of 
 promise or of power. 
 
 Consider, however. What is the reason 
 why a young author so often shows a com- 
 plete inability to discover how bad his early 
 work really is ? It is that he is wholly unable 
 to understand no young writer can under- 
 stand the enormous difference between his 
 powers of conception and imagination which 
 are often enormous and those of execution. 
 If it were worth while, I think it would be 
 possible to extricate from the crude pages of 
 " The Scarlet Shawl " the real novel which 
 the writer actually had in his mind, and fondly 
 thought to have transferred to the printed page. 
 That novel would, I dare say, have been sweet 
 and wholesome, pure and poetical. The thing 
 which he submitted to the public was a work 
 in which all these qualities were conspicuously 
 wanting. The young poet reads his own 
 verses, his mind full of splendid images, 
 
i5o THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 half- formed characters, clouds of bewildering 
 colours, and imagines that he has fixed these 
 floating splendours in immortal verse. When 
 lie has forgotten what was in his mind while 
 he was writing that verse, he will be able to 
 understand how feeble are his rhymes, but not 
 till then. I offer this as some explanation of 
 these early novels. 
 
 Consider, again. He never was a novelist; 
 he never could be one. To begin with, he 
 knew nothing cf society, nothing of men and 
 women, except the people of a small country 
 town. There are, truly, materials for dramatic 
 fiction in plenty upon a farm and in a village; 
 but Jefferies was not the man to perceive 
 them and to use them. His strength lay 
 elsewhere, and as yet he had not found his 
 strength. 
 
 Another reason why he could never be a 
 novelist was that he wholly lacked the dramatic 
 faculty. He could draw splendid landscapes, 
 but he could not connect them together by the 
 thread of human interest. Nature in his books 
 is always first, and humanity always second. 
 Two figures are in the foreground, but one 
 
FICTION, EARLY AND LATE. 151 
 
 hardly cares to look at them in contemplating 
 the wonderful picture which surrounds them. 
 
 Again, he did not understand, so to speak, 
 stage management. When he had got a lot 
 of puppets in his hands, he could not make 
 them act. And he was too self-contained to be 
 a novelist ; he could never get rid of his own 
 personality. When he succeeds in making 
 his reader realize a character, it is when that 
 character is either himself, as in " Bevis," or a 
 part of himself, as Farmer Iden in "Amaryllis." 
 The story in his earlier attempts is always 
 imitative, awkward, and conventional ; it is 
 never natural and never spontaneous. In his 
 later books he lays aside all but the mere 
 pretence of a story. The individual pictures 
 which he presents are delightful and wonder- 
 ful; they are like his short essays and articles 
 they may be read with enormous pleasure 
 but the story, what is the story? Where is 
 it? There is none. There is only the pro- 
 mise of a story not worked out left, not 
 half untold, but hardly begun, as in " After 
 London " and in " Amaryllis at the Fair.' 7 
 You may put down any of his so-called 
 
152 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 novels at any time with no more regret than 
 that this scene or that picture was not longer. 
 As the writer never took any interest in his 
 own characters one understands that as 
 clearly as if it was proclaimed upon the 
 house-tops so none of his readers can be 
 expected to feel any interest. It is the old, 
 old story. In any kind of art it matters not 
 what if you wish your readers to weep, you 
 must first be constrained to weep yourself. 
 Many other reasons might be produced for 
 showing that Jefferies could never have been 
 a successful novelist; but these may suffice. 
 
 Meantime, the wonder remains. How could 
 the same hand write the coarse and clumsy 
 " Scarlet Shawl " which was shortly to give 
 the world such sweet and delicate work, so 
 truthful, so artistic, so full of fine feeling? 
 How could that be possible? Indeed, one 
 cannot altogether explain it. Collectors of 
 Jefferies' books unless they are mere col- 
 lectors who want to have a complete set will 
 do well to omit the early novels. They belong 
 to that class of book which quickly becomes 
 scarce, but never becomes rare. 
 
FICTION, EARLY AND LATE. 153 
 
 There are limitations in the work of every 
 man. With such a man as Jefferies, the limi- 
 tations were narrower than with most of those 
 who make a mark in the history of literature. 
 He was to succeed in one way only in one 
 way. Outside that way, failure, check, disap- 
 pointment, even derision, awaited him. In the 
 " Eulogy of Kichard Jefferies " one can afford 
 to confess these limitations. He is so richly 
 endowed that one can well afford to confess 
 them. It no more detracts from his worth 
 and the quality of his work to own that he 
 was no novelist than it would be to confess 
 that he was no sculptor. 
 
 But the wonder of it ! How could such a 
 man write these works, being already five or 
 six and twenty years of age, without revealing 
 himself ? It is as if one who was to become a 
 great singer should make his first attempt and 
 break down without even revealing the fact 
 that he had a noble voice, as yet untrained. 
 Or as if one destined to be a great painter 
 should send in a picture for exhibition in 
 which there was no drawing, or sense of colour, 
 or grouping, or management of lights, or any 
 
154 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 promise at all. The thing cannot be wholly 
 explained. It is a phenomenon in literature. 
 
 It is best, I say, to acknowledge these limi- 
 tations fully and frankly, so that we may go 
 on with nothing, so to speak, to conceal. Let 
 us grant all the objections to Jefferies as a 
 story-teller that anyone may choose to make. 
 In the ordinary sense of the word, Jefferies 
 was not a novelist; in the artistic sense of the 
 word, he was not a novelist. This fully 
 understood and conceded, we can afterwards 
 consider his later so-called novels as so many 
 storehouses filled with priceless treasure. 
 
 I have in my hands certain letters which 
 Jefferies addressed to Messrs. Tinsley Brothers 
 on the subject of his MSS. They are curious, 
 and rather saddening to read. They begin in 
 the year 1872 with proposals that the firm 
 should publish a work called " Only a Girl," 
 " the leading idea of which is the delineation 
 of a girl entirely unconventional, entirely un- 
 fettered by precedent, and in sentiment always 
 true to herself." He writes a first letter on 
 the subject in May. In September he reopens 
 the subject. 
 
FICTION, EARLY AND LATE. 155 
 
 " The scenery is a description of that found 
 in this county, with every portion of which 
 I have been familiar for many years. The 
 characters are drawn from life, though so far 
 disguised as to render too easy identification 
 impossible. I have worked in many of the 
 traditions of Wilts, endeavouring, in fact, in a 
 humble manner to do for that county what 
 Whyte Melville has done for Northampton 
 and Miss Braddon for Yorkshire." 
 
 As nothing more is written on the subject 
 of " Only a Girl," I suppose she was sup- 
 pressed altogether, or worked up into another 
 book. 
 
 In 1874 he attacks the same publishers with 
 a new MS. This time it is " The Scarlet 
 Shawl." It will be easily understood, from 
 what has gone before, that he was asked to 
 pay a sum of money in advance in order to 
 cover the risk in this case, to pay before- 
 hand the certain loss. He objected to the 
 amount proposed, and says with charming 
 simplicity : 
 
 " I mean to become a name sooner or later. 
 I shall stick to the first publisher who takes 
 
156 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 me up; and, unless I am very much mistaken, 
 we shall make money. To write a tale is to 
 me as easy as to write a letter, and I do not 
 see why I should not issue two a year for the 
 next twelve or fifteen years. I can hardly see 
 the possible loss from a novel." 
 
 This is really wonderful. This young man 
 knows so little about the writing of novels as 
 to suppose that, because it is easy for him 
 to write two " Scarlet Shawls " a year, there 
 can be no possible loss in them! You see 
 that he had everything to learn. You may 
 also observe that from the beginning he has 
 never faltered in his one ambition. He will 
 succeed; and he will succeed in literature. 
 
 Terms are finally agreed upon, and " The 
 Scarlet Shawl " is produced. Some time 
 afterwards he writes for a cheque, and receives 
 an account, whether accompanied by a cheque 
 or not does not appear. But he submits the 
 account to a friend, who assures him that it is 
 correct. Thus satisfied, he finishes a second 
 story, this time in three volumes. It was 
 called " .Restless Human Hearts." 
 
 In the following year " Eestless Human 
 
FICTION, EARLY AND LATE. 157 
 
 Hearts," in three volumes, was brought out 
 by the same firm. In the book of extracts, 
 from which I have already drawn, there are 
 four or five reviews preserved. They are all 
 of the same opinion, and it is not a flattering- 
 opinion. The Graphic admitted that there 
 was one scene drawn with considerable power. 
 One need not dwell longer upon this work. 
 JefFeries, in fact, was describing a society of 
 which he knew absolutely nothing, and was 
 drawing on his imagination for a picture 
 which he tendered as one of contemporary 
 manners. At this juncture nay, at every 
 point of his literary career, he wanted some- 
 one to stand at his elbow and make him tear 
 up everything everything that pretended to 
 describe a society of w r hich he knew nothing. 
 The hero appears to have been a wicked noble- 
 man. Heavens ! what did this young pro- 
 vincial journalist know of wicked noblemen? 
 But he had read about them, when he was a 
 boy. He had read the sensational romances 
 in which the nobleman was, at that time, 
 always represented as desperately wicked. In 
 these later days the nobleman of the penny 
 
158 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 novelette is generally pictured as virtuous. 
 Why and how this change of view has been 
 brought about it is impossible in this place to 
 inquire ; but Jefferies belonged to the genera- 
 tion of wicked dukes and vicious earls. 
 
 The terms upon which " Restless Human 
 Hearts " was published do not appear from 
 the letters extant. Jefferies writes, however, 
 a most sensible letter on the subject. He 
 refuses absolutely to pay any more for publish- 
 ing his own books. He says : 
 
 " This is about the worst speculation into 
 which I could possibly put the money. There- 
 fore I am resolved to spend no more upon the 
 matter, whether the novel gets published or 
 not. The magazines pay well, and immediately 
 after publication the cheque is forwarded. It 
 seems the height of absurdity, after receiving 
 a cheque for a magazine article, to go and pay 
 a sum of money just to get your tale in print. 
 I was content to do so the first time, because 
 it is in accordance with the common rule of 
 all trades to pay your footing." The resem- 
 blance is not complete, let me say, because the 
 new author, on this theory, would not pay 
 
FICTION, EARLY AND LATE. 159 
 
 his footing to other authors, but to a publisher, 
 and, besides, such a proposal has never been 
 made to any author. " I might just as well," 
 he concludes, " put the cheque in the fire as 
 print a tale at my own expense." 
 
 Quite so. Most sensibly put. Young 
 authors will do well to lay this discovery to 
 heart. They may be perfectly certain that a 
 manuscript which respectable firms refuse to 
 publish at their own risk and expense is not 
 worth publishing at all, and they may just 
 as well put their bank-notes upon the fire 
 as pay them to a publisher for producing their 
 works. Nay, much better, because they will 
 thus save themselves an infinite amount of 
 disappointment and humiliation. 
 
 Before " Restless Human Hearts " is well 
 out of the binder's hands, he is ready this 
 indefatigable spinner of cobwebs with another 
 story. It is called " In Summer-Time." He 
 is apparently oblivious of the brave words 
 quoted above, and is now ready to advance 
 20 towards the risk of the new novel. 
 Nothing came of the proposal, and " In 
 Summer-Time" went to join " Only a Girl." 
 
160 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 In the same year this is really a most 
 wonderful record of absolutely wasted energy 
 he has an allegory written in Bunyanesque 
 English called " The New Pilgrim's Progress; 
 or, A Christian's Painful Passage from the 
 Town of Middle Class to the Golden City." 
 This, too, sinks into oblivion, and is heard of 
 no more. 
 
 Undeterred by all this ill-success, Jefferies 
 proceeds to write yet another novel, called 
 " World's End." He says that he has spent 
 a whole winter upon it. 
 
 " The story centres round the great pro- 
 perty at Birmingham, considered to be worth 
 four millions, which is without an owner. A 
 year or two ago there was a family council 
 at that city of a hundred claimants from 
 America, Australia, and other places, but it is 
 still in Chancery. This is the core, or kernel, 
 round which the plot develops itself. I think, 
 upon perusal, you would find it a striking 
 book, and full of original ideas." 
 , In consideration of the failure of " Restless 
 Human Hearts," he offers his publisher the 
 whole of the first edition for nothing, which 
 
FICTION, EARLY AND LATE. 161 
 
 seems fair, and one hopes that his publisher 
 recouped by this first edition his previous 
 losses. The reviewers were kinder to " World's 
 End." The Queen, the Graphic, and the 
 Spectator spoke of it with measured approba- 
 tion, but no enthusiasm. 
 
 He writes again, offering a fourth novel, 
 called " The Dewy Morn;" but as no more 
 letters follow, it is probable that the work 
 was refused. This looks as if the success of 
 "World's End" was limited. "The Dewy 
 Morn," in the later style, was published in 
 1884 by Messrs. Chapman and Hall. 
 
 The appearance of " World's End " marks 
 the conclusion of one period of his life. Hence- 
 forth Jefferies abandons his ill-starred attempts 
 to paint manners which he never saw, a society 
 to which he never belonged, and the life of people 
 concerning whom he knew nothing. He has at 
 last made the discovery that this kind of work 
 is absolutely futile. Yet he does not actually 
 realize the fact until he has made many failures, 
 and wasted a great deal of time, and is nearly 
 thirty years of age. Henceforth his tales, if we 
 are to call them tales, his papers, sketches, and 
 
 11 
 
162 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 finished pictures, will be wholly rural. He 
 has written " The Dewy Morn," and apparently 
 the work has been refused; there was little in 
 his previous attempts to tempt a publisher 
 any farther. He will now write " Greene 
 Feme Farm," " Bevis," " After London," and 
 " Amaryllis at the Fair." They are not novels 
 at all, though he chooses to call them novels ; 
 they are a series of pictures, some of beauty 
 and finish incomparable, strung together by 
 some sort of thread of human interest which 
 nobody cares to follow. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 IN FULL CAREER. 
 
 NEVER, certainly, did any man have a better 
 chance of success in literature than Jefferies 
 about the year 1876. He had made himself, 
 to begin with, an authority on the most in- 
 teresting of all subjects ; he knew more about 
 farming that is to say, farming in his own 
 part of the country than any other man who 
 could wield a pen ; he had written papers full of 
 the most brilliant suggestions, as well as know- 
 ledge, as to the future of agriculture and its 
 possible developments; he had written things 
 which made people ask if there had truly arisen 
 an agricultural prophet in the land. And he 
 was as yet only twenty-eight. Of all young 
 authors, he seems to have been the man most 
 to be envied. Everything that he had so long 
 
 112 
 
164 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 desired seemed now lying at his feet ready to 
 be picked up. To use the old parlance, the 
 trumpet of fame was already resounding in the 
 heavens for him, and the crown of honour was 
 already being woven for his brows. 
 
 Some men would have made of this splendid 
 commencement a golden ladder of fortune. 
 They would have come to town the first 
 step, whether one is to become a millionnaire 
 or a Laureate; they would have joined clubs; 
 they would have gone continually in and out 
 among their fellow-men, and especially those 
 of their own craft or mystery; they would 
 have been seen as much as possible in society; 
 they would have stood up to speak on plat- 
 forms; they would have sought to be men- 
 tioned in the papers ; they would have courted 
 popularity in the ways very well known to 
 all, and commonly practised without conceal- 
 ment. Such a man as Jefferies might have 
 made himself, without much trouble, a great 
 power in London. 
 
 Well, Jefferies did not become a power in 
 London at all. He could not ; everything was 
 against him, except the main fact that the way 
 
IN FULL CAREER. 165 
 
 was open to him. First, the air of the town 
 choked and suffocated him; he panted for the 
 breath of the fields. Next, he had no know- 
 ledge or experience of men; he never belonged 
 to society at all, not even to the quiet society 
 of a London suburb; he had none of the con- 
 versation which belongs to clubs and to club life; 
 he never associated with literary men or London 
 journalists; he knew nobody. Thirdly, there 
 was the reserve which clung round him like a 
 cloak which cannot be removed. He did not 
 want to know anybody ; he was not only re- 
 served, but he was self-contained. Therefore, 
 the success which he achieved did not mean to 
 him what it should have meant had he been 
 a man of the world. On the other hand, it must 
 be conceded that no mere man of the world 
 could write the things which Jefferies subse- 
 quently wrote. Let us, therefore, content our- 
 selves with the reflection that his success 
 proved in the end to be of a far higher kind 
 than a mere worldly success. This knowledge, 
 if such things follow beyond the grave, should 
 be enough to make him happy. 
 
 He was himself contented he was even 
 
166 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 happy and desired nothing more than to go 
 on finding a ready market for his wares, a 
 sufficient income for the daily wants of his 
 household, and that praise which means to 
 authors far more than it means to any other 
 class of men. Nobody praises the physician 
 or the barrister : they go on their own way 
 quite careless of the world's praise. But an 
 author wants it ; I think that all authors need 
 praise. To work day after day, year after 
 year, without recognition, thanks, or apprecia- 
 tion, must in the end become destructive to the 
 highest genius. Praise makes a man write 
 better. Praise gives him that happy self-confi- 
 dence which permits the flow, and helps the 
 expression, of his thoughts. Praise gives him 
 audacity, a most useful quality for an author. 
 Jefferies could never have written his best 
 things but for the praise which he received. 
 The chief reason, I verily believe, why his 
 work went on improving was that every year 
 that he lived after the appearance of the " Game- 
 keeper at Home " he received an ever increasing 
 share of praise, appreciation and encourage- 
 ment. 
 
IN FULL CAREER. 167 
 
 It was somewhere about the year 1876 that I 
 myself first fell upon some of his work. I 
 remember the delight with which I drank, as a 
 bright and refreshing draught from a clear 
 spring-head, the story of the country life as set 
 forth by him, this writer, the like of whom I had 
 never before read. Why, we must have been 
 blind all our lives ; here were the most wonder- 
 ful things possible going on under our very 
 noses, but we saw them not. Nay, after reading 
 all the books and all the papers every one 
 that Jefferies wrote between the years 1876 and 
 1887, after learning from him all that he had 
 to teach, I cannot yet see these things. I see 
 a hedge ; I see wild rose, honeysuckle, black 
 briony herbe aux femmes battues, the French 
 poetically call it blackberry, hawthorn, and 
 elder. I see on the banks sweet wildflowers 
 w r hose names I learn from year to year, and 
 straightway forget because they grow not in 
 the streets. I know very well, because Jefferies 
 has told me so much, what I should be able 
 to see in the hedge and on the bank besides 
 these simple things; but yet I cannot see 
 them, for all his teaching. Mine alas ! 
 
i68 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 are eyes which have looked into shop windows 
 and across crowded streets for half a century, 
 save for certain intervals every year ; they are 
 also eyes which need glasses ; they are slow 
 to see things unexpected, ignorant of what 
 should be expected ; they are helpless eyes 
 when they are turned from men and women to 
 flowers, ferns, weeds, and grasses ; they are, in 
 fact, like unto the eyes of those men with whom I 
 mostly consort. None of us poor street- struck 
 creatures ! can see the things we ought to see. 
 It happened unto me by grace and special 
 favour, I may call it that in the course of 
 my earthly pilgrimage I had for a great many 
 years certain business transactions at regular 
 short intervals with one who knew Jefferies 
 well, because he married his only sister. The 
 habit began, as soon as I learned that fact, of 
 talking about Richard Jefferies as soon as our 
 business was completed. Henceforward, there- 
 fore, week by week, I followed the fortunes of 
 this man, and read not only his books and his 
 papers, but learned his personal history, and 
 heard what he was doing, and watched him curi- 
 ously, unknown and unsuspected by himself. 
 
IN FULL CAREER. 169 
 
 To be sure, his own people knew little, except in 
 general terms, about his intentions or projects. 
 It was not in Jefferies' nature to consult them. 
 Another thing I knew not, because, with charac- 
 teristic pride and reserve, he did not suffer 
 even his brother-in-law or his sister to know 
 it viz., the terrible poverty of his later days. 
 I have never looked upon the face of Richard 
 Jefferies. This, now that it is too late, is to 
 me a deep and abiding sorrow. I always 
 hoped some day to see him there seemed so 
 much time ahead and to tell him, face to 
 face, what one ought to tell such a man it is 
 a plain duty to tell this truth to such a man 
 how greatly I admired and valued his work, 
 with what joy I received it, with what eager- 
 ness 1 expected it, what splendid qualities I 
 found in it, what instruction and elevation of 
 soul I derived from it. I have never even 
 seen this man. I was not a friend of his I 
 was not even a casual acquaintance and yet 
 I am writing his life. Perhaps, in this strange 
 way, by reading all that he wrote, by connect- 
 ing his work continually with what I learned, 
 of his life and habits, and by learning, day by 
 
1 70 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 day, all the things which happened to him, I 
 may have learned to know him more intimately 
 even than some of those who rejoiced in being 
 called his friends. 
 
 As for his personal habits, Jefferies was 
 extremely simple and regular, even methodical. 
 He breakfasted always at eight o'clock, often 
 on nothing but dry toast and tea. After 
 breakfast he went to his study, where he re- 
 mained writing until half-past eleven. At 
 that hour he always went out, whatever the 
 weather and in all seasons, and walked until 
 one o'clock. This morning walk was an abso- 
 
 o 
 
 lute necessity for him. At one o'clock he 
 returned and took an early dinner, which was 
 his only substantial meal. His tastes were 
 simple. He liked to have a plain roast or 
 boiled joint, with abundance of vegetables, of 
 which he was very fond, especially asparagus, 
 sea-kale, and mushrooms. He would have 
 preferred ale, but he found that light claret 
 or burgundy suited him better, and therefore 
 he drank daily a little of one or the other. 
 
 Dinner over, he read his daily paper, and 
 slept for an hour by the fireside. Perhaps 
 
IN FULL CAREER. 171 
 
 this after-dinner sleep may be taken as a sign 
 of physical weakness. A young man of thirty 
 ought not to want an hour's sleep in the middle 
 of the day. At three o'clock he awoke, and 
 went for another walk, coming home at half- 
 past four. He thus walked for three hours 
 every day, which, for a quick walker, gives a 
 distance of twelve miles a very good allow- 
 ance of fresh air. Men of all kinds, who have 
 to keep the brain in constant activity, have 
 found that the active exercise of walking is 
 more valuable than any other way of recreation 
 in promoting a healthy activity of the brain. 
 To talk with children is a rest ; to visit picture- 
 galleries changes the current of thought ; to 
 play lawn tennis diverts the brain ; but to 
 walk both rests the brain and stimulates it. 
 Jefferies acquired the habit of noting down in 
 his walks, and storing away, those thousands 
 of little things which make his writings the 
 despair of people who think themselves minute 
 observers. He took tea at five, and then 
 worked again in his study till half-past eight, 
 when he commonly finished work for the day. 
 In other words, he gave up five hours of the 
 
172 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 solid day to work. It is, I think, impossible 
 for a man to carry on literary work of any but 
 the humblest kind for more than five hours a 
 day ; three hours remained for exercise, and 
 the rest for food, rest, and reading. He took 
 a little supper at nine, of cold meat and bread, 
 with a glass of claret, and then read or con- 
 versed until eleven, when he went to bed. He 
 took tobacco very rarely. 
 
 He had not a large library, because the 
 works which he most wished to procure were 
 generally beyond his means. For instance, 
 he was always desirous, but never able, to 
 purchase Sowerby's "English Wild-Flowers." 
 His favourite novelists were Scott and Charles 
 Keade. The conjunction of these two names 
 gives me singular pleasure, as to one who 
 admires the great qualities of Reade. He also 
 liked the works of Ouida and Miss Braddon. 
 He never cared greatly for Charles Dickens. I 
 think the reason why Dickens did not touch 
 him was that the kind of lower middle-class 
 life which Dickens knew so well, and loved to 
 portray, belonged exclusively to the town, 
 which Jefferies did not know, and not to the 
 
IN FULL CAREER. 173 
 
 country, which he did. He was never tired 
 of Goethe's " Faust," which was always new 
 to him. He loved old ballads, and among the 
 poets, Dryden's works were his favourite 
 reading. In one thing he was imperious: 
 the house must be kept quiet absolutely 
 quiet while he was at work. Any house- 
 hold operations that made the least noise had 
 to be postponed till he went out for his walk. 
 I have before me a great number of note- 
 books filled with observations, remarks, ideas, 
 hints, and suggestions of all kinds by him. 
 He carried them about during his walks, and 
 while he was always watching the infinite 
 wealth and variety of Nature, the multitu- 
 dinous forms of life, he was always noting 
 down what he saw. To read these note-books 
 is like reading an unclassified index to the 
 works of Nature. And since they throw so 
 much light upon his methods, and prove if 
 that wanted any proof how careful he was to 
 set down nothing that had not been noted and 
 proved by himself, I have copied some few 
 pages, which are here reproduced. Observe 
 that these extracts are taken almost at random 
 
174 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 from two or three note-books. The writing is 
 cramped, and in parts very difficult to make out. 
 
 " Oct. 16, 1878. Wasp and very large blue-fly struggling, 
 wrestling on leaf. In a few seconds wasp got the mastery, 
 brought his tail round, and stung twice or thrice ; then bit 
 off the fly's proboscis, then the legs, then bit behind the 
 head, then snipped off the wings, then fell off leaf, but flew 
 with burden to the next, rolled the fly round, and literally 
 devoured its intestines. Dropped off the leaf in its eager 
 haste, got on third leaf, and continued till nothing was left 
 but a small part of the body the head had been snipped 
 off before. This was one of those large black flies a little 
 blue underneath not like meat flies, but bigger and squarer, 
 that go to the ivy. Ivy in bloom close by, where, doubt- 
 less, the robber found his prey and seized it. 
 
 " While the other leaves fall, the thick foliage of the fir 
 supports the leaves that have been wafted to it, so that the 
 fir's branches are thickly sprinkled with other leaves." 
 
 " Surrey, Oct. 27. Red-wings numerous, and good many 
 fieldfares. 
 
 " Ivy, brown reddish leaves, and pale-green ribs." 
 
 " Oct. 29. Saw hawk perched on telegraph line out of 
 railway-carriage window. Train passed by within ten yards ; 
 hawk did not move. 
 
 " Street mist, London, not fog, but on clear day comes up 
 about two-thirds the height of the houses." 
 
 " Nov. 3. The horse-chestnut buds at end of boughs; 
 tree quite bare of leaves ; all sticky, colour of deep varnish, 
 strongly adhesive. These showed on this tree very fully. 
 
 " Golden-crested wren, pair together Nov. 3 ; ' cheep- 
 cheep ' as they slipped about maple bush, and along and up 
 oak bough ; motions like the tree-climber up a bough ; the 
 crest triangular, point towards beak, spot of yellow on wing. 
 
 " Still day ; the earth holds its breath." 
 
IN FULL CAREER. 175 
 
 " Nov. 11. Gold-crested wren and torn-tit on furze cling- 
 ing to the very spikes, and apparently busy on the tiny green 
 buds now showing thickly on the prickles. 
 
 " The contemplation of the star, the sun, the tree raises 
 the soul into a trance of inner sight of nature." 
 
 " Nov. 17. Sycamore leaves some few still on spotted 
 with intensely black spots an inch across. Willow buds 
 showing." 
 
 " Nov. 23. Oaks most beautiful in sun elms nearly leaf- 
 less, also beech and willow but oaks still in full leaf, some 
 light-brown, still trace of green, some brown, some buff, and 
 tawny almost, save in background, toned by shadow, a trace 
 of red. The elms hid them in .summer ; now the oaks stand 
 out the most prominent objects everywhere, and are seen to 
 be three times as numerous as expected." 
 
 " Nov. 25. Thrushes singing again ; a mild day after 
 week or two cold." 
 
 " Dec. 23. Red-wings came within a yard, Velt (?) came 
 within ten, wood-pigeon the same. Weasel hunting hedge 
 under snow ; under-ground in ivy as busy as possible ; good 
 time for them." 
 
 " Jan. 6. Very sharp frost, calm, some sun in morning, 
 dull at noon." 
 
 " Jan. 7. Frost, wind, dull." 
 
 " Jan. 8. Frost light, strong N.E. wind." 
 
 " Jan. 9. Frost light, some little snow, wind N.E., light. 
 
 "Jan. 10. Very fine, sunny, N.E. wind, sharp frosty 
 morning. 
 
 " Orange moss on old tiles on cattle-sheds and barns a 
 beautiful colour ; a picture." 
 
 " Feb. 7. Larks soaring and singing the first time ; one 
 to an immense height ; rain in morning, afternoon mild but 
 a strong wind from west ; catkins on hazel, and buds on 
 some hazel-bushes ; missel- thrush singing in copse ; spring 
 seems to have burst on us all at once ; chaffinches pairing, 
 or trying to ; fighting." 
 
1 76 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 " Feb. 8. Numerous larks soaring ; copse quite musical ; 
 now the dull clouds of six weeks have cleared away, we see 
 the sun has got up quite high in the sky at noon." 
 
 " Feb. 12. Rooks, five, wading into flood in meadow, 
 almost up to their breasts ; lark soaring and singing at 
 half-past five, evening ; light declining ; partridges have 
 paired. 
 
 " No blue geranium in Surrey that I have seen." 
 
 "Feb. 17. Rooks busy at nests, jackdaws at steeple; 
 sliding down with wings extended, 4.50, to gardens below at 
 great speed." 
 
 " Feb. 20. Ploughs at work again ; have not seen them 
 for three months almost." 
 
 " Feb. 21. Snow three or four inches ; broom bent down; 
 the green stalks that stand up bent right down ; afterwards 
 bright sunshine for some hours, and then clouded again." 
 
 " Feb. 22. Berries on wild ivy on birch-tree, round and 
 fully-formed and plentiful ; berries not formed on garden 
 ivy." 
 
 "Feb. 27. Snow on ground since morning of 21st ; four 
 wild ducks going over to east ; first seen here for two years ; 
 larks fighting and singing over snow ; thawing ; snow dis- 
 appeared during day; tomtit at birch-tree buds; pigeons 
 still in large flocks." 
 
 " March 7. Splendid day ; warm sun, scarcely any wind ; 
 wood-pigeons calling in copse here." 
 
 " April 16. Elms beginning to get green with leaf-buds ; 
 apple leaf-buds opening green." 
 
 "May 12. A real May-day at last ; warm, west wind, 
 sunshine ; birds singing as if hearts would burst ; four or 
 five blackbirds all in hearing at once ; butterfly, small white, 
 tipped with yellowish red ; song of thrush more varied even 
 than nightingale ; if rare, people would go miles to hear it, 
 never the same in same bird, and every bird different; fear- 
 less, too ; operatic singer. 
 
 " More stitchwort ; now common ; it looks like ten petals, 
 
7A r FULL CAREER. 177 
 
 but is really five ; the top of the petal divided, which gives 
 the appearance ; a delicate, beautiful white ; leaves in pairs, 
 pointed. 
 
 " Humble-bees do suck cowslips." 
 
 " May 14. Lark singing beautifully in the still dark and 
 clouded sky at a quarter to three o'clock in the morning ; 
 about twenty minutes afterwards the first thrush ; thought 
 I heard distant cuckoo not sure ; and ten minutes after that 
 the copse by garden perfectly ringing with the music. A 
 beautiful May morning ; thoroughly English morning : 
 southerly wind, warm light breeze, smart showers of warm 
 rain, and intervals of brilliant sunshine ; the leaves in copse 
 beautiful delicate green, refreshed, cleaned, and a still more 
 lovely green from the shower ; behind them the blue sky, 
 and above the bright sun ; white detached clouds sailing 
 past. That is the morning ; afternoon more cloudy. 
 
 " More swifts later in evening. The first was flying low 
 down against wind ; seemed to progress from tip to tip of 
 wing, alternately throwing himself along, now one tip down- 
 wards, now the other, like hand- over-hand swimming. 
 Furze-chat, first in furze opposite, perched on high branch 
 of furze above the golden blossom thick on that branch ; a 
 way of shaking wings while perched ; * chat-chat ' low ; 
 head and part of neck black, white ring or band below, 
 brownish general colour. Nightingale singing on elm- 
 branch a large, thick branch, projecting over the green 
 by roadside perched some twenty-five feet high. Yellow- 
 hammer noticed a day or two ago perched on branch length- 
 wise, not across. Oaks : more oaks out. Ash : thought I saw 
 one with the large black buds enlarged||and lengthened, but 
 not yet burst." 
 
 " May 18. The white-throat feeds on the brink of the 
 ditch, perching on fallen sticks or small bushes ; there is 
 then no appearance of a crest ; afterwards he flies up to the 
 topmost twig of the bush, or on a sapling tree, and immedi- 
 
 12 
 
i;8 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 ately he begins to sing, and the feathers on the top of his 
 head are all ruffled up, as if brushed the, wrong way." 
 
 " May 20. Coo of dove in copse first." 
 
 " May 21. The flies teased in the lane to-day the first 
 time." 
 
 Such a man as Jefferies, with his necessities 
 of fresh air and solitude, should have been 
 adopted and tenderly nursed by some rich 
 man; or he should have been piloted by some 
 agent who would have transacted all his busi- 
 ness for him, placed his articles in the most 
 advantageous way, procured him the best price 
 possible for his books, and relieved him from 
 the trouble of haggling and bargaining a 
 necessary business to one who lives by his pen, 
 but to one of his disposition an intolerable 
 trouble. It would, again, one thinks, have 
 proved a profitable speculation if some pub- 
 lisher had given him a small solid income in 
 return for having all his work. Consider: 
 for the truly beautiful papers on trie country 
 life which Jefferies wrote, there were the 
 magazines in which they might first appear, 
 both American and English, and there was the 
 volume form afterward s. Would four hundred 
 pounds a year to Jefferies it would have 
 
IN FULL CAREER. 179 
 
 seemed affluence have been too much to pay 
 for such a man? I think that from a com- 
 mercial point of view, even including the year 
 when he was too ill to do any work, it might 
 have paid so to run Jefferies. As it was, he 
 had no one to advise him. He drifted help- 
 lessly from publisher to publisher. His name 
 stood high, and rose steadily higher, yet he 
 made no more money by his books. The 
 value of his work rose no higher it even fell 
 lower. This curious fact that increase of 
 fame should not bring increase of money 
 Jefferies did not and could not understand. It 
 constantly irritated and annoyed him. He 
 thought that he was being defrauded out of 
 his just dues. On this point I will, however, 
 speak again immediately. 
 
 The young couple remained at Swindon 
 until February, 1877, when Jefferies thought 
 himself justified in giving up his post on the 
 North Wilts Herald, and in removing nearer 
 London. But it must not be too near London. 
 He must only be near in the sense of readyaccess 
 by train. Therefore he took a house at Surbi- 
 ton it was at No. 2, Woodside. At this 
 
 122 
 
i8o THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 semi-rural place one is near to the river, the 
 fields, and the woods. It is not altogether a 
 desertion of the country. Jefferies could not 
 leave the country altogether. It was necessary 
 for him to breathe the fresh air of the turf and 
 the fragrance of the newly-turned clods. He 
 could not live, much less work, unless he did 
 this. As for his work, that was daily suggested 
 and stimulated by this continual communing 
 with Nature. Poverty might prick him it 
 might make him uneasy for the moment it 
 never made him unhappy but unless his 
 brain was full to overflowing, he could not 
 work. Out of the abundance of his heart his 
 mouth spoke. It seems, indeed, futile to regret- 
 that such a man as this did not make a more 
 practical advantage to himself out of his 
 success. He could not. If a man cannot, he 
 cannot. Just as in scientific observation 
 there is a personal equation, so in the conduct 
 of life there is a personal limitation. Some 
 unknown force holds back a man when he 
 has reached a certain point. The life of 
 every man, rightly studied, shows his personal 
 limitation. But without the whole life of a 
 
IN FULL CAREER. 181 
 
 man spread out before us, it is not easy to 
 understand where this personal limitation 
 begins. There is no more to be said when 
 this is once understood. It is a matter of 
 personal limitation. Those kindly people who 
 continually occupy themselves with the con- 
 cerns of their neighbours, constantly go wrong 
 because they do not understand the personal 
 limitation. What we call fate is often another 
 word for limitation. Why do I not write better 
 English, and why have I not a nobler style, 
 and why cannot I become the greatest writer 
 who ever lived ? Because I cannot rise above 
 a certain level. If I am a wise man, I find 
 out that level ; I reach it, and am content 
 therewith. Why did not Jefferies make him- 
 self rich with the opportunities he had? Be- 
 cause he could not. Because to grasp an 
 opportunity and to turn it to his own material 
 interest was a thing beyond his personal limi- 
 tation. To seize Time by the forelock, though 
 he go ever so slowly, is to some men impossible. 
 For while they look on and hesitate, another 
 steps in before them ; or the world is looking 
 on and observes the situation, ready to sneer 
 
182 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 and snigger, and there seems a kind of mean- 
 ness in the act very likely there is meanness ; 
 or to do so one must trample on one's neigh- 
 bours ; or one must desert one's habits of life, 
 throw over all that one loves, and make a 
 change of which the least that can be said is 
 that it is certain to make one uncomfortable 
 for the remainder of life. 
 
 Therefore, Jefferies suffered that forelock to 
 be plucked by another, and continued to 
 wander about the fields. He had now indeed 
 attained the object of his ambition. He was 
 not only a recognised and successful writer, 
 but his work was also looked for and loved. 
 Happy that author who knows that his work 
 is expected before it is ready, and is loved 
 when it appears. Henceforth he made no 
 more mistakes. He understood by this time 
 his personal limitation. His work, as well as 
 his days, must be concerning the fields and the 
 wild life. Year after year that work becomes 
 more beautiful until the end. As for an income, 
 it was mainly secured by his contributions to 
 the magazines and journals. He wrote, during 
 the last ten years of his life, for nearly all the 
 
IN FULL CAREER. 183 
 
 magazines, but especially for Longman's. He 
 also contributed to the Standard, the St. 
 James's, the Pall Mall, the Graphic, the 
 World, and other papers. Most of these 
 articles he gathered together as soon as there 
 were enough of them, and published them in 
 a volume. In this way he made a little more 
 out of them. He even contrived to save a 
 little money. But his income was never very 
 great. 
 
 The first five of the works on the country 
 life were published by Messrs. Smith and 
 Elder. These were the "Gamekeeper at Home," 
 "Wild Life in a Southern County," " The 
 Amateur Poacher," "Greene Feme Farm," 
 and "Round About a Great Estate." Then 
 he did either a very foolish or a very unfortu- 
 nate thing. He left Messrs. Smith and Elder, 
 and for the rest of his life he went about 
 continually changing his publisher, always 
 in the hope of getting a better price for 
 his volumes, and always chafing at the 
 smallness of the pecuniary result. An author 
 should never change his publisher, unless he is 
 compelled to do so by the misfortune of starting 
 
1 84 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 with a shark, a thing which has happened 
 unto many. The very fact of having all his 
 works in the same hands greatly assists their 
 sale. A reader who is delighted, for instance, 
 with " Red Deer," and would wish to get 
 other books by the same author, finds the 
 name of Longmans on the back, but no list of 
 those books published by Smith and Elder, 
 Chatto and Windus, Cassell and Co., and 
 Sampson Low and Co. I have myself found 
 it very difficult to get a complete set of 
 Jefferies' books. At the London Library, 
 even, they do not possess a complete set. 
 Then that reader lays down his book, and 
 presently forgets his purpose. I suppose that 
 there are very few, even of Jefferies' greatest 
 admirers, who actually possess all his works. 
 
 He was, as I have already said, bitter against 
 publishers for the small sums they offered him. 
 He made the not uncommon mistake of sup- 
 posing that, because the reviews spoke of his 
 works in terms so laudatory, which, indeed, 
 no reviewers could refrain from doing, the 
 public were eagerly buying them. I have, 
 myself, had perhaps an exceptional experience 
 
IN FULL CAREER. 185 
 
 of authors, their grumblings, and their griev- 
 ances, and I know that this confusion of 
 thought this unwarranted conclusion is 
 very widespread. An author, that is to say, 
 reads a highly-complimentary review of his 
 work, and looks for an immense and immedi- 
 ate demand in consequence for that work. 
 Well, every good review helps a book, un- 
 doubtedly, but to a much smaller extent, from 
 the pecuniary point of view, than is generally 
 believed. The demand for a book is created 
 in quite other ways; partly by the author's 
 previous works, which, little by little, or, if 
 he is lucky, at a single bound, create a clientele 
 of those who like his style; partly by the talk 
 of people who tell each other what they have 
 read, and recommend this or that book. Then, 
 since most books are read from the circulating 
 library, and that kind of personal recommen- 
 dation, especially with a new writer, takes time, 
 the libraries are able to get along with a com- 
 paratively- small number of copies ; in fact, 
 an author may have a very considerable name, 
 and yet make, even with the honourable houses, 
 quite a small sum of money by any work 
 
i86 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 Again, this is not, one sorrowfully owns, a 
 country which buys books. My compatriots 
 will buy everything and anything, except 
 books. They will lavish their money in 
 every conceivable manner, except one they 
 never commit extravagances in buying books. 
 For the greater part, the three-guinea subscrip- 
 tion to the library is the whole of the family 
 expenditure for the greatest, the only unfailing, 
 delight that life has to offer them. 
 
 Again, in the case of Richard Jefferies, the 
 demand for his books was confined to a com- 
 paratively small number of readers. I do not 
 suppose that his work will ever be widely 
 popular, and yet I am certain that his reputa- 
 tion will grow and increase. Of all modern 
 writers, I know of none of whom one can 
 predict with such absolute certainty that he 
 will live. He will surely live. He draws, as 
 no other writer has done, the actual life of rural 
 England under Queen Victoria. For the very 
 fidelity of these pictures alone he must live. 
 No other writers, except Jefferies and Thomas 
 Hardy, have been able to depict this life. And, 
 what is even more, as the hills, and fields, and 
 
IN FULL CAREER. 187 
 
 woods, and streams are ever with us, whether 
 we are savages or civilized beings, whatever 
 our manners, dress, fashions, laws or customs, 
 the man who speaks with truth of these speaks 
 for all time and for all mankind. 
 
 Yet he is not, and will never be, widely 
 popular. There are many persons, presum- 
 ably persons of culture, who cannot read 
 Jeiferies. A country parson poor man! 
 observed to me in Swindon itself, that he 
 hoped the biography of Richard Jefferies 
 would not prove so dry as the works of 
 Richard Jefferies. These, he said, with the 
 cheerful dogmatism of his kind, were as dry 
 as a stick, and impossible to read. Now, this 
 good man was probably in some sort a scholar. 
 He lives in the Jefferies county. All round 
 him are the hills and downs described in these 
 works. To us those hills and downs are now 
 filled with life, beauty, and all kinds of delight- 
 ful things, entirely through those very books. 
 The good vicar finds them so dry that he 
 cannot read them. Others there are who 
 complain that Jefferies is always " catalogu- 
 ing." One understands what is meant. To 
 
1 88 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 some of us the picture is always being im- 
 proved by the addition of another blade of 
 grass, another dead leaf, or the ear of a hare 
 visible among the turnip-tops ; others are 
 fatigued by these little details. Jefferies is 
 too full for them. 
 
 Another thing against him in the minds of 
 the frivolous is that you cannot skip in reading 
 JefFeries. To take up a volume is to read it 
 right through from beginning to end. You 
 can no more skip JefFeries than you can skip 
 Emerson. Now, most readers like to rush a 
 volume. You cannot rush JefFeries. I defy 
 the most rapid reader to rush Jefferies. You 
 might as well try to rush the Proof of the 
 Binomial Theorem. Others - there are who 
 like to be made to laugh or to cry. This man 
 never laughs. You may, perhaps, put down 
 the book and smile at the incongruities of the 
 rustic talk, but you do not laugh. Hardy's 
 rustics will make you laugh a whole summer's 
 day through, but Jefferies' rustics never. He 
 is always in earnest. Hardy is a humorist; 
 Jefferies is not. And, worst sin of all in him 
 who courts popularity, he makes his readers 
 
IN FULL CAREER. 189 
 
 think. Men who live alone, who walk about 
 alone, who commune with Nature all day 
 long, do not laugh, and do not make others 
 laugh. 
 
 For these reasons, then, among others, 
 Jefferies was never popular, despite the lauda- 
 tory reviews and the readiness with which 
 editors welcomed his work. 
 
 As to the remuneration which he received. 
 With these considerations in our minds, let us 
 next remember that publishing is a business 
 undertaken, not for love of literature or of 
 authors, but for profit, for a livelihood, for 
 making money. It is, therefore, conducted 
 upon "business principles." Now, in business 
 of every kind, the first rule is that the business 
 man must " make a profit on every transac- 
 tion.'' You must pay your publisher, if you 
 engage one, just as you must pay your solici- 
 tor. This is fair, just, and honest. You 
 must pay him for his time and his trouble. 
 He must be paid either by the author, or out 
 of the books which he sells. The only ques- 
 tion, therefore, not including certain awkward 
 points into which we need not here enter I am 
 
190 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 speaking only of honourable houses is what 
 proportion of a book's returns, or what sum, 
 should be paid to a publisher for his trouble. 
 Now, I have learned enough of the sale of 
 Jefferies' books, and of the sums which he 
 received for them, to be satisfied that his 
 publishers' services were by no means exorbi- 
 tantly paid by the sale of his books, and that 
 no more, from a business point of view, could 
 have been given. That is to say, if more had 
 been given, it would have been as a free gift, 
 or act of charity, which this author would 
 have spurned. All these things, however, he 
 could not understand, perhaps because they 
 were never explained to him. 
 
 I have been told by one who knew Jefferies 
 from boyhood that he was indolent, and would 
 never have worked had it not been for necessity. 
 His writings do not convey to me the idea of 
 an indolent man. On the contrary, they are 
 those of a man of an intellect so active that he 
 must have been compelled to work. Yet one 
 can understand that he could not work, after 
 making the grand discovery of what his work 
 should be, until his brain was overflowing 
 
IN FULL CAREER. 191 
 
 with the subject. Generally it was a single 
 and a simple subject round which he wove his 
 tapestry. The subject once conceived, he could 
 do nothing until his brain was charged and 
 possessed with it. 
 
 His life has henceforth no incidents to record, 
 except those of work and illness. He worked, 
 he walked, he wrote, he walked again, he read, 
 he watched and observed, he thought. That 
 is his life, until illness fell upon him. Always 
 a silent man, always a man of few friends, 
 always a man of simple habits, in all weathers 
 delighting to be out of doors, refusing to put 
 on a great-coat or to carry an umbrella. 
 
 He changed his residence several times. 
 From Surbiton, where he stayed for five years, 
 he went to West Brighton, to a house called 
 " Savernake." Did he himself christen it after 
 the forest which he knew so well? Thence, 
 in 1884, he went to Eltham, where he took a 
 house in the Victoria Road. Then, I suppose, 
 an irresistible yearning for some place far from 
 men seized him, for he moved again, and went 
 to live at a cottage two miles and a half from 
 Crowborough Station, near Crow borough Hill, 
 
192 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 the highest spot in Sussex. Again he stayed 
 for a few weeks on the Quantock Hills, Somer- 
 set. Lastly, he went to live at a house called 
 Sea View, at Goring, where he died. 
 

 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE LONGMAN LETTERS. 
 
 MR. CHARLES LONGMAN, who for the last eight 
 years of Jefferies' life was one of his most 
 constant friends, has lent me a packet of letters 
 written to him by Jefferies between the years 
 1878 and 1886. They form by themselves, 
 like the previous letters to Mrs. Harrild, a 
 kind of diary of his life during that period. 
 
 " The papers on the ' Gamekeeper at Home/ 
 in the Pall Mall Gazette" Mr. Longman 
 writes, " were the first things of Jefferies 7 
 that attracted me. I thought at once that 
 they seemed to me written by a man who 
 could see more of the secrets of nature than 
 anyone whose work I had ever come across. 
 I wrote to Mr. George Smith, asking him to 
 forward a letter to the writer of the papers, 
 
 13 
 
194 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 whose name I did not know. In the letter I 
 proposed that he should write a complete work 
 on Shooting, to be what Hawker's work was 
 forty years ago. He never did it; but this 
 was the beginning of my friendship with this 
 most interesting man." 
 
 u He never did it." Jefferies could never 
 do anything which did not spring from his 
 own brain. He has written admirable pages on 
 kindred subjects he was the very man to write 
 such a book and it would undoubtedly have 
 proved a most popular book. Why, there is 
 not a gentleman's house in the three kingdoms 
 or the colonies which would not desire to have 
 a copy of such a work. But the work was 
 proposed to him by another man, therefore 
 Jefferies could not see his way to put his 
 heart in it. However, he did think of it : 
 he even went so far as to draw up a scheme 
 of the work. He would have chapters on 
 the gun, the gun-room, the art of shooting, 
 etiquette of the field, the dog, the various 
 kinds of game, and so forth. Presently, we 
 hear that the book is actually begun ; that 
 there are difficulties about getting information 
 
THE LONGMAN LETTERS. 195 
 
 as to various points ; that he has been occupied 
 with the various kinds of game, and so on. 
 He also mentions with complacency pardon- 
 able and even praiseworthy that he has re- 
 ceived a proposal to write two books from a 
 leading Edinburgh firm. Nothing apparently 
 came of this proposal. It is, however, notice- 
 able, and to young writers it should be very 
 encouraging, that no sooner did his first really 
 good book appear the "Gamekeeper at 
 Home " than his genius was at once recog- 
 nised, and the best publishers began inviting 
 him to write for them. He then offers a novel 
 always a novel ! which Messrs. Longmans' 
 reader does not advise the house to accept. 
 What was that novel ? Perhaps one of those 
 which had already been refused by one pub- 
 lisher, if not by more. Pending the writing 
 and completion of the book on Shooting, he 
 submits another proposal. He says : 
 
 " To carry out this volume I must partly lay 
 aside some MSS. which I had previously begun, 
 and before writing it I should like to hear your 
 opinion on the subject. The provisional title 
 
 132 
 
196 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 of one for which I have accumulated materials 
 and ideas for some time is c The Proletariate: 
 the Power of the Future.' It has been my lot 
 to see a great deal of the Labour Question, 
 not only agricultural, but also urban." Really ? 
 Urban? Where, how, and in what period of 
 his life did he get his urban experience? Was 
 it on the streets of Swindon, that great centre 
 of life and thought? " And it seems to me 
 that all politics are slowly resolving into this 
 one great point." He means that the condi- 
 tion of the people all over the world is rapidly 
 becoming the dominant question. He was 
 right ; but he spoke ten years too soon. 
 " Eeligion, society, institutions of every kind 
 are affected. No doubt you saw the extra- 
 ordinary account in the Times recently of the 
 burial of a Socialist in Germany, and the 
 marked progress of their doctrines. There 
 are several books on wages, capital and labour, 
 etc., but it seems to me that most thinkers 
 and writers treat the subject on grounds too 
 narrow. Of wages I propose to say very little. 
 My idea is to point out how proletarian influ- 
 ences are at work everywhere under the sur- 
 
THE LONGMAN LETTERS. 197 
 
 face. The Church, the Chapel, the Houses of 
 Parliament, legislation, society, at home ; abroad, 
 the same. Note the Nihilism in Russia, and 
 the railway insurrection in the United States 
 lately. Everywhere the masses are heaving 
 and fermenting. In our own rural districts I 
 clearly foresee changes in the future through 
 the education now beginning of the cottagers. 
 Personally, I have little feeling, and my book 
 will be absolutely free of party politics. I 
 look at it much as I should dissect and 
 analyze a given period in the history of 
 ancient Rome." 
 
 Nothing came of this proposal, and, indeed, 
 one feels that Jefferies was not the man to 
 write such a book. Of the people in other 
 countries he knew nothing but what he read 
 in the papers; of the people at home he knew 
 only the agricultural portion ; and though 
 he had read a great many books he was ir 
 no sense an historical student. But he was 
 still young, and it still seemed to him, 
 as to all young writers, that he could write 
 a book upon any subject which it interested 
 him to read about in the papers or elsewhere. 
 
198 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 The same letter contains another idea. It 
 is that of a book on " The History of the 
 English Squire." This seems a very good 
 subject for a competent person. Perhaps 
 someone will take up the idea and write 
 the history of the English squire before he 
 becomes extinct. One would like to see how, 
 first, the yeoman added acre to acre, ousting 
 his neighbour, and so became the squire ; then 
 how, gradually, all over the country, owing to 
 the action of forces too strong for him, the 
 yeoman began to disappear; how the squire 
 was able to add more acres, buying out yeoman 
 after yeoman, always on the look-out to buy 
 more land, and therefore always becoming 
 more important; and how, presently, he got 
 a title, which he now "enjoys," claiming 
 superiority of blood and descent, while the 
 ex -yeoman, once his equal, is now his tenant, 
 and humbly doffs his hat. Jefferies, one feels 
 convinced, ought to have written a most in- 
 teresting and instructive volume upon this 
 subject, if which he has never shown he 
 had the patience for historical research and 
 investigation. 
 
THE LONGMAN LETTERS. 199 
 
 He presently forwards a specimen chapter 
 for the Shooting- Book. That was in Sep- 
 tember, 1878. In October he formally ac- 
 cepted the business arrangements offered by 
 the firm, undertook the work, and signed the 
 agreement. There follows here a gap of three 
 years. When the letters are resumed, JefFeries 
 is living at West Brighton (December, 1882). 
 He offers to contribute to the new Longman's 
 Magazine, and proposes an article consisting 
 of three short sketches. (l) The Acorn- 
 gatherer; (2) The Legend of a Gateway ; and 
 (3) A Roman Brook. This article, in fact, 
 appeared under the title of " Bits of Oak Bark." 
 
 He presently speaks of his long illness, which 
 has kept him out of the world. " I see," he says, 
 "that you havegot outthe Shooting-Book under 
 the title of ' The Dead Shot.' ' This, however, 
 was a reprint of an old book. Mr. Longman's 
 idea of a complete manual for shooting has 
 since been carried out in " The Badminton 
 Library." "No wonder; I could not expect 
 anyone to be more patient than you were. 
 But even now I hope some day to send in 
 a manuscript." 
 
200 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 He is also ready to write another book. 
 This time it is to be a series of " short story - 
 sketches of life and character, incident and 
 nature. I want to express the deeper feelings 
 with which observation of life-histories has filled 
 me, and I assure you I have as large a collec- 
 tion of these facts and incidents the natural 
 history of the heart as I have ever written 
 about birds and trees." In short, he proposes 
 to write a series which shall take the place in 
 the magazine of the novel, and says that he 
 has enough material to carry him along until 
 the year 1890, or longer. "Why not let 
 other contributors, besides the novelist, oc- 
 casionally give you a series? For myself, I 
 have given up English novels and taken to 
 the French, which are at least bright, short, 
 dramatic, and amusing." The poor English 
 novelist ! He has to endure a great deal, 
 Whenever an editor is in want of a subject for 
 a leading article, or a critic for something to 
 talk about, he has a fling at the English 
 novelist. The greatest artist and the smallest, 
 most insignificant story-teller ; the master and 
 the apprentice ; the observer of manners and 
 
THE LONGMAN LETTERS. 201 
 
 the school-girl all are lumped together by 
 the critic who has nothing else to write about, 
 and discussed under the title of " the English 
 Novelist." And to think that Jefferies 
 Richard Jefferies should throw his stone ! 
 Oh ! 'tis too much ! But Nemesis fell upon 
 him, for he presently wrote " Green Feme 
 Farm," which is neither short, bright, dramatic, 
 nor amusing. That proposed series did not 
 appear. He says, a few days afterwards, that 
 he has begun a paper asked for by Mr. Long- 
 man on " The County Suffrage." This paper 
 subsequently appeared under the title of "After 
 the County Suffrage." 
 
 It was in June, 1883, that Longman's 
 Magazine contained the article called " The 
 Pageant of Summer." This fine paper, the best 
 thing ever written by Jefferies, glorified the 
 whole of that number. There has never been, 
 I think, in any magazine any article like unto it, 
 so splendid in imagery and language, so per- 
 fectly truthful, so overflowing with observa- 
 tion, so full of the deepest feeling, so tender 
 and so touching, so generous of thought and 
 suggestion. In this paper Jefferies reached 
 
202 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 his highest point. There are plenty of single 
 pages and detached passages in which he has 
 equalled the u Pageant of Summer ;" but there 
 is no one chapter, no single article, in which 
 he has sustained throughout the elevation of 
 this noble paper. I will return to " The 
 Pageant of Summer " later on. 
 
 Although he wrote this paper while in dire 
 straits of poverty; although he had already 
 entered that valley whose gloomy sides con- 
 tinually narrow; where the slopes become, 
 little by little, precipices ; where the light 
 grows dim, and where the spectre of death 
 slowly rises before the eyes and takes shape : 
 although he lived poorly ; although he con- 
 tinued unknown to the mass of the reading 
 world, who passed him by, everything, to us, 
 seems compensated by the splendid power which 
 he had now acquired of thinking such thoughts 
 and expressing them in such language. I 
 have heard it said by some that Jefferies wrote 
 too much. Not a single page too much, 
 beginning from the " Gamekeeper at Home," 
 and thinking only of the " Gamekeeper's " 
 legitimate successors ! That is to say, we are 
 
THE LONGMAN LETTERS. 203 
 
 prepared to surrender portions, but not all 
 saving great pieces, huge cantles, here and 
 there whole chapters of " Bevis," " Wood 
 Magic," "After London," "Green Feme 
 Farm," " The Dewy Morn," and even 
 " Amaryllis." We will blot out everything 
 that has to do with the ordinary figures, con- 
 versations, and situations of what the writer 
 called a novel. But of the rest we will not 
 part with one single line. Year after year 
 generation after generation the truth and 
 fidelity and beauty of these pages will sink 
 deeper and deeper into the heart of the world. 
 So deeply will they sink, so long will they 
 live, that he who writes a memoir of this man 
 trembles for thinking that when future ages 
 ask who and what was the man who wrote 
 these things, the pages which contain his life 
 may seem unequal to the subject too low 
 pedestrian, and creeping for the greatness of 
 the author he commemorates. 
 
 I return to the packet of letters. They go 
 on to offer articles, and to explain how pro- 
 mised papers are getting on. He wrote nine 
 papers in all for Longmans Magazine namely, 
 
204 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 three in 1883, two in 1884, one in 1885, one 
 in 1886, and two, which appeared after his 
 death, in the year 1887. 
 
 In June of 1883 he offers a manuscript 
 which, he says, he has been meditating for 
 seventeen years. In that case he must have 
 begun to think of it at eighteen. This, if one 
 begins to consider, is by no means improb- 
 able. On the contrary, I think it is extremely 
 probable, and that Jefferies meant his words 
 to be taken literally. The thoughts of a boy 
 are long thoughts. Sometimes one remembers, 
 by some strange trick of memory it shows 
 how the past never dies, but may be recalled 
 at any moment a train of thought which filled 
 the mind on some day long passed away, when 
 one was a lad of eighteen; a child; almost 
 an infant. At such a moment one is astonished 
 to remember that this thought filled the brain 
 so early. As for the age of adolescence, there 
 is no time when the brain is more active to 
 question, to imagine, to create, to inform; 
 none, when the mind is more eager to arrive 
 at certainty ; none, more hopeful of the future ; 
 none, more anxious to arrive at the truth. 
 
THE LONGMAN LETTERS. 205 
 
 Therefore, when Jefferies tells Mr. Longman 
 that he has meditated " The Story of My 
 Heart " for eighteen years, I believe him : 
 not that he then consciously called the work 
 by that or by any other name, but that the 
 book is the outcome of so long a period of 
 thought and questioning. " It is," he says, 
 " a real record unsparing to myself as to 
 all things absolutely and unflinchingly 
 true." 
 
 The book was published with Longman's 
 autumn list in October, 1883. I have some- 
 thing to say about it in another chapter. 
 
 Jefferies' industry at this time seems super- 
 human. The MS. of "The Story of My 
 Heart " is no sooner out of his hands, than he 
 asks Mr. Longman if he will look at another. 
 This time it is his " Ked Deer," which I really 
 believe to be the very best book of the kind 
 ever produced. This is what he says himself 
 about it : 
 
 " The title is ' Red Deer/ and it is a 
 minute account of the natural history of the 
 wild deer of Exmoor, and of the modes of 
 
206 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 hunting them. I went all over Exmoor a 
 short time since on foot in order to see the 
 deer for myself, and in addition I had the 
 advantage of getting full information from the 
 huntsman himself, and from others who have 
 watched the deer for twenty years past. The 
 chase of the wild stag is a bit out of the life 
 of the fifteenth century brought down to our 
 own times. Nothing has ever interested me 
 so much, and I contemplate going down again. 
 In addition, there are a number of Somerset 
 poaching tricks which were explained to me 
 by gamekeepers and by a landowner there, 
 besides a few curious superstitions. There 
 seem to be no books about the deer I mean 
 the wild deer. A book called ' Colly er's 
 Chase of the Wild Red Deer ' was published 
 many years ago, but is not now to be had. 7 ' 
 
 " Red Deer " was brought out by Longmans 
 in 1884. 
 
 In December, 1883, he offers " The Dewy 
 Morn." The proposal came to nothing. The 
 book was published in the following year by 
 Messrs. Chapman and Hall. In February, 1884 
 he speaks of a letter written to him by Lord 
 
THE LONGMAN LETTERS. 207 
 
 Ebrington, master of the Devon and Somerset 
 staghounds, upon his " Eed Deer." Certain 
 small errors were pointed out for correction, 
 but, as he points out with satisfaction, no 
 serious omission or fault had been discovered. 
 In a letter written in March he mentions 
 that an anonymous correspondent has been 
 scourging him with Scripture texts on account 
 of the " Story of My Heart." That anony- 
 mous correspondent! How he lieth in wait 
 for everybody ! how omniscient he is ! how un- 
 sparing ! how certain and sure of everything ! 
 The texts which this person used to belabour 
 poor Jefferies were, however, singularly in- 
 appropriate. " Lord," he quotes, " how 
 glorious are Thy works ! Thy thoughts are 
 very deep. An unwise man doth not consider 
 this, and a FOOL doth not understand it." 
 The word " fool " was doubly underlined, so 
 that there should be no mistake as to the 
 practical application of the passage. The 
 anonymous correspondent is, indeed, always 
 very particular on this point. But Jefferies 
 had been all his life commenting on the glory 
 of those works, and endeavouring to apprehend 
 
208 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 and to realize, if only a little, the meaning 
 and the depth of these thoughts. The cry 
 of his heart all through the book is for fuller 
 insight for a deeper understanding. 
 
 He goes on to speak of his illness. It is 
 not, he says, at all serious; but it will make 
 him go to London to see a physician, and it is 
 likely to prevent him from getting about. 
 There is a paper (not one of these letters) 
 among his literary remains, in which he 
 describes the symptoms at length. 
 
 In April he writes a long letter about many 
 things, but especially his " After London." 
 
 " I have just put the finishing touch to my 
 new book. It is in three volumes." As pub- 
 lished by Cassell and Co. it was in one volume, 
 and it leaves off with the story only half told. 
 Perhaps the author cut it down, perhaps the 
 publishers refused to bring it out unless as a 
 short one- volume work. "It is called," he 
 says, " ' After London/ with a second title, 
 ' Chronicles of the House of Aquila.' The 
 first part describes the relapse of England 
 into barbarism; how the roads are covered 
 
THE LONGMAN LETTERS. 209 
 
 with grass, how the brambles extend over the 
 fields, and in time woods occupy the country. 
 These woods are filled with wild animals 
 descendants of the dogs, cats, swine, horses, 
 and cattle that were left, and gradually re- 
 turned to their original wild nature. The 
 rivers are choked, and a great lake forms in 
 the centre of the island. 
 
 " Such inhabitants as remain are resident 
 about the shores of the lake the forest being 
 without roads, and their only communication 
 being by water. They have lost printing and 
 gunpowder; they use the bow and arrow, and 
 wear armour, but retain some traces of the 
 arts and of civilization. At the same time, 
 slavery exists, and moral tyranny. There are 
 numerous petty kingdoms and republics at war 
 with each other. Knights and barons possess 
 fortified dwellings, and exercise unbounded 
 power within their stockaded estates stock- 
 aded against bushmen, forest savages, against 
 bands of gipsies, and against wild cattle and 
 horses. 
 
 " The Welsh issue from their mountains, 
 claiming England as having belonged to their 
 
 14 
 
210 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 ancestors. They succeed in conquering a sec- 
 tion, but are confronted by other invaders, for 
 the Irish, thinking that now is the time for 
 their revenge, land at Chester. These invaders 
 to some degree neutralize each other, yet they 
 form a standing menace to the South, and 
 more civilized portion. 
 
 " The state of the site of London is fully 
 described. It is, I think, an original picture. 
 
 " The second part, or ( Chronicles of the 
 House of Aquila,' treats of the manner of life, 
 the hunting journeys through the forest, the 
 feasts and festivals, and, in short, the entire 
 life of the time. Ultimately, one of them 
 starts on a voyage round the great inland 
 lake, and his adventures are followed. He 
 assists at a siege, and visits the site of 
 London. 
 
 u All these matters are purposely dealt with 
 in minute detail so that they may appear actual 
 realities, and the incidents stand out as if they 
 had just happened. There is a love affair, but 
 it is in no sense a novel ; more like a romance, 
 but no romance of a real character. 
 
 " First, you see, I have to picture the con- 
 
THE LONGMAN LETTERS. 211 
 
 dition of the country ' After London/ and 
 then to set my heroes to work, and fight, and 
 travel in it." 
 
 This book was brought out, as stated above, 
 by Cassell and Co. in 1886. The idea is 
 indeed truly original. Had it been more ot 
 a novel, with an end, as well as a beginning, 
 it would have proved more successful. 
 
 " You tell me," Jefferies continues, x " that I 
 write too much. To me it seems as if I wrote 
 nothing, more especially since my illness; for 
 this is the third year I have been so weakened. 
 To me, I say, it seems as if I wrote nothing, 
 for my mind teems with ideas, and my diffi- 
 culty is to know what to do with them. I 
 not only sketch out the general plan of a book 
 almost instantaneously, but I can see every 
 little detail of it from the first page to the last. 
 The mere writing the handwriting is the 
 only trouble; it is very wearying. At this 
 moment I have several volumes quite complete 
 in my mind. Scarce a day goes by but I put 
 down a fresh thought. I have twelve note- 
 books crammed full of ideas, plots, sketches of 
 papers, and so on." 
 
 142 
 
212 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 These are probably the note-books of which 
 I have spoken, and from which I have quoted. 
 
 The following, dated January 29, 1885, 
 refers to a copy of the Badminton hunting - 
 book sent him by Mr. Longman: 
 
 " You have made me pretty miserable. I 
 have just read the otter chapter, and I can see 
 it all so plainly the rocks and the rush of 
 water, and the oaks of June above. Have you 
 ever seen the Exe and Barle? It is a land of 
 Paradise. So you have made me miserable 
 enough, being on all- fours; literally not able 
 to go even on three, as the Sphynx said, but 
 on four, crawling upstairs on hands and knees, 
 and nailed to the uneasy chair." 
 
 He offers more work from Crowborough 
 (May 1, 1884 or 1885, uncertain). There is 
 a new novel of which he speaks, called " A Bit 
 of Human Nature," which never appeared, and 
 was probably never written. The rest of the 
 letters belong to the last few months of his life, 
 and must be reserved for the last chapter. 
 
THE LONGMAN LETTERS. 213 
 
 Enough has been quoted from these letters 
 to show the extraordinary mental activity of 
 the man. He is continually planning new 
 work. He sees a whole book spread out before 
 him complete in all its details. To make a 
 book that is to say, to imagine a book already 
 made, is nothing ; what troubles him is the 
 writing it. This temperament, however, is 
 fatal to novel- writing, because characters can- 
 not be seen at once; they must be studied, 
 they require time to grow in the brain. But 
 Jefferies cannot write enough. It seems to 
 his fertile brain, fevered with long sickness, as 
 if he did nothing. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE COUNTRY LIFE. 
 
 IT was then, very slowly, and after many hesita- 
 tions, false starts, deviations, and mistakes, that 
 Jefferies at last discovered himself and his real 
 powers. He had written, for obscure country 
 papers, pages of local descriptions : he had 
 written feeble and commonplace novels, which 
 all fell dead at their birth, and of which none 
 survive to reproach his memory or to darken 
 the splendour of his later work. He had also 
 written practical common -sense papers on 
 agriculture, the farmer and the farm-labourer. 
 He thus worked his way slowly, first to the 
 mere mechanical art of writing, that is, to the 
 expression, somehow or other, of thought and 
 ideas ; next, when this was acquired, he en- 
 deavoured to depict society, of which he knew 
 
THE COUNTRY LIFE. 215 
 
 nothing, and its manners, of which he was com- 
 pletely ignorant ; thirdly, after many years of 
 blundering along the wrong road, he advanced 
 to the perception of the great truth that he who 
 would succeed in the great profession of letters 
 must absolutely write on some subject that he 
 knows, and that he should understand his own 
 limitations. For instance, Jefferies, as we 
 have seen, ardently desired to become a 
 novelist. If a man be habitually observant 
 of his fellow -men, if he have the eye of a 
 humourist, a brain which is like a store-house 
 for capacity, a fair measure of the dramatic 
 faculty, an instinctive power of selection, and 
 the faculty of getting away from his own in- 
 dividuality altogether, he will perhaps do well 
 to try the profession of a novelist. But Jefferies 
 possessed one only of these faculties : he had 
 a brain which would hold millions of facts, each 
 consigned to its proper place : but he had little 
 or no humour : he had no power of creating 
 situation and incident : and he could never 
 possibly get outside himself and away from 
 his own people. He could not, therefore, 
 become a novelist : that line of work though 
 
126 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 he never understood it was closed to him 
 from the beginning. Nature herself stood 
 before him, though he neither saw nor heard 
 her, as Balaam could not see the angel, 
 and barred his way. But when he discovered 
 his own incomparable gift, which was not until 
 he was nearly thirty years of age, he sprang 
 suddenly before the world as one who could 
 speak of Nature and her wondrous works in 
 field and forest, as no man ever spake before. 
 
 There is a passage in Thomas Hardy's 
 " Woodlanders " which might have been 
 written of Richard Jefieries. The words, which 
 could only have been written by one who 
 himself knows the country life, concern a pair, 
 not one : 
 
 " The casual glimpses which the ordinary 
 population bestowed upon that wondrous 
 world of sap and leaves called the Hintock 
 woods had been, with these two, a clear gaze. 
 They had been possessed of its finer mysteries 
 as of commonplace knowledge : had been able 
 to read its hieroglyphs as ordinary writing; 
 
THE COUNTRY LIFE. 217 
 
 to them the sights and sounds of night, winter, 
 wind, storm, amid those dense boughs, were 
 simple occurrences whose origin, continuance, 
 and laws they foreknew. They had planted 
 together, and together they had felled ; to- 
 gether they had, with the run of the 
 years, mentally collected those remoter signs 
 and symbols which seen in few were of runic 
 obscurity, but all together made an alphabet. 
 From the light lashing of the twigs upon their 
 faces when brushing through them in the dark, 
 they could pronounce upon the species of the 
 tree whence they stretched ; from the quality 
 of the wind's murmur through a bough they 
 could in like manner name its sort afar off. 
 They knew by a glance at a trunk if its heart 
 were sound, or tainted with incipient decay ; 
 and by the state of its upper twigs the stratum 
 that had been reached by its roots. The arti- 
 fices of the seasons were seen by them from 
 the conjuror's own point of view, and not from 
 that of the spectator." 
 
 There are not in the whole of the English- 
 speaking world, which now numbers close 
 
218 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 upon a hundred million, more, I suppose, than 
 forty thousand who read Jefferies' works. 
 Out of the forty thousand not one-half have 
 read them all. For some are contented with the 
 " Gamekeeper at Home," " Eed Deer," and 
 the "Amateur Poacher." Some have on their 
 shelves " The Life in the Fields," or " The 
 Open Air." Few, indeed, have read all those 
 books which came from his brain in so full 
 and clear a stream. This stream may be 
 likened unto the river by whose banks Petrarch 
 loved to wander ; inasmuch as it springs full 
 grown from the foot of a great bare precipice. 
 All around is tumbled rock. So, among the 
 heaped and broken rocks of disappointed hopes 
 and baffled attempts, this full, strong, and 
 clear stream leaped forth triumphant. 
 
 For the greater part of mankind Jefferies is 
 too full. They cannot absorb so much ; they are 
 more at their ease with the last century poets 
 who use to talk vaguely of the perfumed flowers, 
 the rustling leaves, the finny tribe, and the 
 warbling of the birds in the bosky grove. It 
 fatigues them to read of so much that they can 
 never see for themselves ; it irritates them, 
 
THE COUNTRY LIFE. 219 
 
 perhaps, even to think that there is so much ; 
 they are more at home among their geraniums 
 in the conservatory ; they even call his style 
 a cataloguing. 
 
 There is also another thing where Jefferies 
 is outside the sympathies of the multitude. 
 This solitary, who was never so happy as when 
 he wandered alone upon the downs with no 
 human creature in sight, is yet intensely 
 human. All kinds of injustice, and especially 
 social injustice, the grinding and robbery and 
 oppression of the producer, the pride of caste 
 and class, the pretensions of rank and the in- 
 solence of money these things make him 
 angry. Now, if there be one thing more lament- 
 ably sure and certain than another, it is that 
 injustice does not make the average man 
 angry. If money is to be made by injustice, 
 he will be unjust. He will call his injustice, 
 unless he covers and hides it up, the custom 
 of the trade, and persuade himself that it is 
 laudable and even Christian so to act. When 
 another man speaks the truth about these in- 
 justices, he gets uncomfortable. Because, 
 you see, he goes to church, and perhaps bears 
 
220 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 a character for eminent piety. There were 
 doubtless churchwardens and sidesmen among 
 those who, fifty years ago, used to send the little 
 children of six to work for fourteen hours in 
 the dark coal-pit. Jefferies had lived so little 
 in towns and among men that he did not 
 know any sophistry of trade custom, and when 
 he heard of these customs his soul flamed up. 
 It is not a side of his character which often 
 comes into view ; but it comes often enough 
 to irritate many excellent people who live in 
 great comfort by the exertions of other people, 
 and plume themselves mightily upon their 
 virtues, hereditary or otherwise. Jefferies 
 could never have called himself a Socialist ; 
 but he sympathized with that part of Socialism 
 which claims for every man the full profit of 
 the labour of his hands. 
 
 " Dim woodlands made him wiser far 
 
 Than those who thresh their barren thought 
 With flails of knowledge dearly bought, 
 Till all his soul shone like a star 
 That flames at fringe of Heaven's bar, 
 There breaks the surf of space unseen 
 Against Hope's veil that lies between 
 Love's future and the woes that are. 
 
THE COUNTRY LIFE. 221 
 
 " His soul saw through the weary years- 
 Past war-bells' chimes and poor men's tears 
 
 That day when Time shall bring to birth 
 (By many a heart whose hope seems vain, 
 And many a fight where Love slays Pain) 
 
 True Freedom, come to reign on earth."* 
 
 In thinking of Jefferies and the country life, 
 one is continually tempted to compare him 
 with Thoreau. There are some points of resem- 
 blance. Neither Thoreau nor Jefferies had a 
 scientific training. I do not gather from any 
 page in the works of the latter that he was a 
 scientific botanist, entomologist, or ornitholo- 
 gist. Both were men of few wants and simple 
 habits. Neither went to church, yet in the 
 heart of each there was a profound sense of 
 religion, which, in the case of Jefferies, took 
 the form of a firm faith in the future destiny 
 of the soul. Both men were impatient of 
 authority and of imitation. Each desired to 
 be self- sufficient. What Emerson says of 
 Thoreau in respect of open air and exercise 
 might have been written of Jefferies. " The 
 length of his walk uniformly made the length 
 
 * These lines were communicated to me by the writer, Mr. 
 H. H. von Sturmer, of Cambridge. 
 
222 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 of his writing. If shut up in the house he 
 could not write at all." 
 
 In both men there was to be observed a great 
 strength of common-sense. And again, there 
 was this other point common to both, that no 
 college I here imitate Emerson on Thoreau 
 ever offered either of them a diploma or a 
 professor's chair : no academy made either 
 man its corresponding secretary, its founder, 
 or even its member. And the following 
 passage, written by Emerson of Thoreau, might 
 be equally well written, mutatis mutandis, of 
 Jefferies : 
 
 " Thoreau dedicated his genius with such 
 entire love to the fields, hills and waters of 
 his native town, that he made them known 
 and interesting to all reading Americans, and 
 to people over the sea. The river on whose 
 banks he was born and died he knew from its 
 springs to its confluence with the Merriniack. 
 He had made summer and winter observations 
 on it for many years, and at every hour of the 
 day and night. Every fact which occurs in the 
 bed, on the banks, or in the air over it the 
 
THE COUNTRY LIFE. 223 
 
 fishes, and their spawning and nests, their 
 manners, their food ; the shad-flies which fill 
 the air on a certain evening once a year, and 
 which are snapped at by the fishes so raven- 
 ously that many of these die of repletion ; the 
 conical heaps of small stones on the river- 
 shallows ; the huge nests of small fishes, one 
 of which will sometimes overfill a cart; the 
 birds which frequent the stream, heron, duck, 
 sheldrake, loon, osprey; the snake, muskrat, 
 otter, woodchuck and fox, on the banks ; the 
 turtle, frog, hyla, and cricket, which make the 
 banks vocal were all known to him, and, as it 
 were, townsmen and fellow- creatures ; so that 
 he felt an absurdity or violence in any narrative 
 of one of these by itself apart, and still more 
 of its dimensions on an inch-rule, or in the 
 exhibition of its skeleton, or the specimen of 
 a squirrel or a bird in brandy. He liked to 
 speak of the manners of the river, as itself a 
 lawful creature, yet with exactness, and always 
 to an observed fact. As he knew the river, 
 so the ponds in this region. " 
 
 Again, though Thoreau was short of stature 
 
224 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 and Jefferies tall, there is something similar in 
 their faces : the lofty forehead ; the full, 
 serious eye ; the large nose these are features 
 common to both. And to both was common 
 but Jefferies had, perhaps, the greater forbear- 
 ance a certain impatience with the common 
 herd of mankind who know not, and care not 
 for, Nature. 
 
 There is another passage on Thoreau by 
 a younger writer, * which might just as well 
 have been written, word for word, of 
 Jefferies : 
 
 " The quality which we should call mystery 
 in a painting, and which belongs so particu- 
 larly to the aspect of the external world and 
 to its influence upon our feelings, was one 
 which he was never weary of attempting to 
 reproduce in his books. The seeming signifi- 
 cance of nature's appearances, their unchanging 
 strangeness to the senses, and the thrilling 
 response which they waken in the mind of 
 man, continued to surprise and stimulate his 
 
 * Robert Louis Stevenson, " Men and Books : Thoreau." 
 Chatto and Windus, London. 
 
THE COUNTRY LIFE. 225 
 
 spirits. It appeared to him, I think, that if 
 we could only write near enough to the facts, 
 and yet with no pedestrian calm, but ardently, 
 we might transfer the glamour of reality direct 
 upon our pages ; and that, if it were once thus 
 captured and expressed, a new and instructive 
 relation might appear between men's thoughts 
 and the phenomena of nature. This was the 
 eagle that he pursued all his life long, like a 
 schoolboy with a butterfly net. Hear him to 
 a friend : ' Let me suggest a theme for you 
 to state to yourself precisely and completely 
 what that walk over the mountains amounted 
 to for you, returning to this essay again and 
 again until you are satisfied that all that was 
 important in your experience is in it/ ' 
 
 It was not until JefFeries had thoroughly 
 mastered this lesson, and saturated himself 
 with its spirit, that he began to write well. 
 No one would believe that the same hand 
 which wrote " The Scarlet Shawl " also wrote 
 " The Pageant of Summer." I firmly believe 
 that it is not until a man obtains the great gift 
 of beautiful thought that he can even begin 
 
 15 
 
226 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 to understand the beauty of style. To some 
 such thoughts come early ; to others, late. 
 When Jefieries left men for the fields, and 
 not till then, his mind became every day more 
 and more charged with beauty of thought, and 
 his style grew correspondingly day by day 
 more charged with beauty. This beauty of 
 thought grows in him out of the intense love, 
 the passionate love, which he has for every- 
 thing in Nature : it is the child of that love : 
 it is Nature's reward for that love : he loves 
 not only flowers and trees, but every flower, 
 every tree ; he is even contented to look upon 
 the same trees, the same hedges filled with 
 flowers every day : 
 
 " I do not want change," he says ; " I want 
 the same old and loved things, the same wild- 
 flowers, the same trees and soft ash-green ; 
 the turtle-doves, the blackbirds, the coloured 
 yellowhammer sing, sing, singing so long as 
 there is light to cast a shadow on the dial, for 
 such is the measure of his song : and I want 
 them in the same place. Let me find them 
 morning after morning, the starry-white petals 
 
THE COUNTRY LIFE. 227 
 
 radiating, striving upwards to their ideal. Let 
 me see the idle shadows resting on the white 
 dust ; let me hear the humble-bees, and stay 
 to look down on the rich dandelion disk. Let 
 me see the very thistles opening their great 
 crowns I should miss the thistles ; the reed- 
 grasses hiding the moorhen ; the bryony bine, 
 at first crudely ambitious and lifted by force 
 of youthful sap straight above the hedgerow 
 to sink of its own weight presently and pro- 
 gress with crafty tendrils ; swifts shot through 
 the air with outstretched wings like crescent - 
 headed shaftless arrows darted from the clouds ; 
 the chaffinch with a feather in her bill ; all the 
 living staircase of the spring, step by step, 
 upwards to the great gallery of the summer 
 let me watch the same succession year by 
 year." 
 
 Therefore, and in return for this great love, 
 Nature rewarded him. Jefferies began, as 
 Thoreau recommends, by writing down every- 
 thing that he saw : he presently arrived at an 
 inconceivable power of minute observation. 
 Pages might be quoted to show this wonderful 
 
 152 
 
228 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 closeness. It is indeed the first, but not the 
 finest, characteristic of Jefferies. It was the 
 point which most struck the critic in the 
 " Game-keeper at Home." But it is not the 
 point which most strikes the reader in his later 
 and more delicate work. Here the things which 
 he loves speak to him : they reply to his 
 questioning ; they support and raise his soul. 
 "So it has ever been to me," he says, " by 
 day or by night, summer or winter : beneath 
 trees the heart feels nearer to that depth of 
 life which the far sky means. The rest of spirit 
 found only in beauty, ideal and pure, comes 
 there because the distance seems within touch 
 of thought." 
 
 In Jefferies' later books the whole of the 
 country life of the nineteenth century will be 
 found displayed down to every detail. The 
 life of the farmer is there ; the life of the 
 labourer ; the life of the gamekeeper ; the life 
 of the women who work in the fields, and of 
 those who work at home. If this were all. 
 he would well deserve the gratitude of the 
 English-speaking race, because in any genera- 
 tion to get so great a part of life described 
 
THE COUNTRY LIFE. 229 
 
 truthfully is an enormous boon. But it is far 
 from being the most considerable part of his 
 work. He revealed Nature in her works 
 and ways ; the flowers and the fields ; the wild 
 English creatures ; the hedges and the streams ; 
 the wood and coppice. He told what may be 
 seen everywhere by those who have eyes to 
 see. He worked his way, as we have seen, to 
 this point. And, again, if this were all, he would 
 well deserve the gratitude which we willingly 
 accord to a White of Selborne. But this is 
 not all. For next he took the step the vast 
 step across the chasm which separates the 
 poetic from the vulgar mind, and began to 
 clothe the real with the colours and glamour 
 of the unreal; to write down the response of the 
 soul to the phenomena of nature : to interpret 
 the voice of Nature speaking to the soul. Unto 
 this last. And then he died ; his work, which 
 might have gone on for ever, cut off almost at 
 the commencement. 
 
 I desire in this chapter to show how Jefferies 
 paints the country life ; to show him in his 
 minuteness and fidelity first, and in his higher 
 flights afterwards. Even to those who know 
 
230 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 Jefferies there will be something new in read- 
 ing these scenes again. To those who know 
 him not, and yet can feel beauty and truth 
 and simplicity things so rare, so very rare 
 these scenes will be like the entrance to some 
 unknown gallery filled with pictures exquisite, 
 touching and tender. 
 
 I select, first, a specimen of his early style. 
 He is speaking of the provision made by the 
 oak for the creatures of the wood : 
 
 1 ( It is curious to note the number of crea- 
 tures to whom the oak furnishes food. The 
 jays, for instance, are now visiting them for 
 acorns ; in the summer they fluttered round 
 the then green branches for the chafers, and 
 in the evenings the fern owls or goat- suckers 
 wheeled about the verge for these and for 
 moths. Kooks come to the oaks in crowds for 
 the acorns ; wood-pigeons are even more fond 
 of them, and from their crops quite a handful 
 may sometimes be taken when shot in the trees. 
 
 " They will carry off at once as many acorns 
 as old-fashioned economical farmers used to 
 walk about with in their pockets, ' chucking ' 
 
THE COUNTRY LIFE. 231 
 
 them one, two, or three at a time to the pigs 
 in the stye as a bonne bouche and an encourage- 
 ment to fatten well. Never was there such a 
 bird to eat as the wood-pigeon. Pheasants 
 roam out from the preserves after the same 
 fruit, and no arts can retain them at acorn 
 time. Swine are let run out about the hedge- 
 rows to help themselves. Mice pick up the 
 acorns that fall, and hide them for winter use, 
 and squirrels select the best. 
 
 " If there is a decaying bough, or, more 
 particularly, one that has been sawn off, it 
 slowly decays into a hollow, and will remain 
 in that state for years, the resort of endless 
 woodlice, snapped up by insect-eating birds. 
 Down from the branches in spring there 
 descend long, slender threads, like gossamer, 
 with a caterpillar at the end of each the 
 in sect- eating birds decimate these. So that 
 in various ways the oaks give more food to 
 the birds than any other tree. Where there 
 are oaks there are sure to be plenty of birds." 
 
 After reading this, turn to the following, 
 in quite a different style, from the same 
 
232 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 volume. Could the same man, one asks, have 
 written both these passages ? 
 
 " The waves coming round the promontory 
 before the west wind still give the idea of a 
 flowing stream, as they did in Homer's days. 
 Here beneath the cliff, standing where beach 
 and sand meet, it is still ; the wind passes six 
 hundred feet overhead. But yonder, every 
 larger wave rolling before the breeze breaks 
 over the rocks ; a white line of spray rushes 
 along them, gleaming in the sunshine ; for a 
 moment the dark rock-wall disappears, till the 
 spray sinks. 
 
 " The sea seems higher than the spot where 
 I stand, its surface on a higher level raised 
 like a green mound as if it could burst in 
 and occupy the space up to the foot of the 
 cliff in a moment. It will not do so, I know ; 
 but there is an infinite possibility about the 
 sea ; it may do what it is not recorded to have 
 done. It is not to be ordered, it may overleap 
 the bounds human observation has fixed for it. 
 It has a potency unfathomable. There is still 
 something in it not quite grasped and under- 
 
 
THE COUNTRY LIFE. 233 
 
 stood something still to be discovered a 
 mystery. 
 
 " So the white spray rushes along the low 
 broken wall of rocks, the sun gleams on the 
 flying fragments of the wave, again it sinks, 
 and the rhythmic motion holds the mind, as 
 an invisible force holds back the tide. A faith 
 of expectancy, a sense that something may 
 drift up from the unknown, a large belief in 
 the unseen resources of the endless space out 
 yonder, soothes the mind with dreamy hope. 
 
 " The little rules and little experiences, all 
 the petty ways of narrow life, are shut off 
 behind by the ponderous and impassable cliff; 
 as if we had dwelt in the dim light of a cave, 
 but coming out at last to look at the sun, a 
 great stone had fallen and closed the entrance, 
 so that there was no return to the shadow. 
 The impassable precipice shuts off our former 
 selves of yesterday, forcing us to look out over 
 the sea only, or up to the deeper heaven. 
 
 " These breadths draw out the soul ; we feel 
 that we have wider thoughts than we knew ; 
 the soul has been living, as it were, in a nut- 
 shell, all unaware of its own power, and now 
 
234 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 suddenly finds freedom in the sun and the sky. 
 Straight, as if sawn down from turf to beach, 
 the cliff shuts off the human world, for the sea 
 knows no time and no era ; you cannot tell 
 what century it is from the face of the sea. 
 A Roman trireme suddenly rounding the white 
 edge-line of chalk, borne on wind and oar from 
 the Isle of Wight towards the gray castle at 
 Pevensey (already old in olden days), would 
 not seem strange. What wonder could sur- 
 prise us coming from the wonderful sea ?" 
 
 Here, again, is a specimen of what has been 
 called his " cataloguing." He describes a 
 hedge-row. Cataloguing! Yes. But was 
 ever observation more minute ? 
 
 " A wild ' plum/ or bullace, grew in one 
 place ; the plum about twice the size of a sloe, 
 with a bloom upon the skin like the cultivated 
 fruit, but lacking its sweetness. Yet there 
 was a distinct difference of taste : the ' plum ' 
 had not got the extreme harshness of the sloe. 
 A quantity of dogwood occupied a corner ; in 
 summer it bore a pleasing flower ; in the 
 
THE COUNTRY LIFE. 235 
 
 autumn, after the black berries appeared upon 
 it, the leaves became a rich bronze colour, and 
 some when the first frosts touched them, curled 
 up at the edge and turned crimson. There 
 were two or three guelder-rose bushes the 
 wild shrub which were covered in June with 
 white bloom ; not in snowy balls like the 
 garden variety, but flat and circular, the florets 
 at the edge of the circle often whitest, and 
 those in the centre greenish. In autumn the 
 slender boughs were weighed down with heavy 
 bunches of large purplish berries, so full of 
 red juice as to appear on the point of bursting. 
 As these soon disappeared they were doubtless 
 eaten by birds. 
 
 " Besides the hawthorn and briar there were 
 several species of willow the snake-skin 
 willow, so called because it sheds its bark ; 
 the ' snap-willow,' which is so brittle that 
 every gale breaks off its feeble twigs, and 
 pollards. One of these, hollow and old, had 
 upon its top a crowd of parasites. A bramble 
 had taken root there, and hung over the side ; 
 a small currant-bush grew freely both, no 
 doubt, unwittingly planted by birds and 
 
236 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 finally the bines of the noxious bitter-sweet or 
 nightshade, starting from the decayed wood, 
 supported themselves among the willow- 
 branches, and in autumn were bright with red 
 berries. Ash-stoles, the buds on whose boughs 
 in spring are hidden under black sheaths ; nut- 
 tree stoles, with ever-welcome nuts always 
 stolen here, but on the downs, where they are 
 plentiful, staying till they fall ; young oak 
 growing up from the butt of a felled tree. On 
 these oak-twigs sometimes, besides the ordinary 
 round galls, there may be found another gall, 
 larger, and formed, as it were, of green scales 
 one above the other. 
 
 " Where shall we find in the artificial and, 
 to my thinking, tasteless pleasure-grounds of 
 modern houses so beautiful a shrubbery as this 
 old hedgerow ? Nor were evergreens wanting, 
 for the ivy grew thickly, and there was one 
 holly bush not more, for the soil was not 
 affected by holly. The tall cow-parsnip or 
 * gicks ' rose up through the bushes ; the great 
 hollow stem of the angelica grew at the edge 
 of the field, on the verge of the grass, but still 
 sheltered by the brambles. Some reeds early 
 
THE COUNTRY LIFE. 237 
 
 in spring thrust up their slender green tubes, 
 tipped with two spear-like leaves. The reed 
 varies in height according to the position in 
 which it grows. If the hedge has been cut it 
 does not reach higher than four or five feet ; 
 when it springs from a deep, hollow corner, or 
 with bushes to draw it up, you can hardly 
 touch its tip with your walking-stick. The 
 leaders of the black bryony, lifting themselves 
 above the bushes, and having just there nothing 
 to cling to, twist around each other, and two 
 bines thus find mutual support where one 
 alone would fall of its own weight. 
 
 " In the watery places the sedges send up 
 their dark flowers, dusted with light yellow 
 pollen, rising above the triangular stem with 
 its narrow, ribbed leaf. The reed- sparrow or 
 bunting sits upon the spray over the ditch 
 with its carex grass and rushes ; he is a grace- 
 ful bird, with a crown of glossy black. Hops 
 climb the ash and hang their clusters, which 
 impart an aromatic scent to the hand that 
 plucks them ; broad burdock leaves, which the 
 mouchers put on the top of their baskets to 
 shield their freshly gathered watercresses from 
 
238 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 the sunshine ; creeping avens, with buttercup- 
 like flowers and long stems that straggle across 
 the ditch, and in autumn are tipped with a 
 small ball of soft spines ; mints, strong-scented 
 and unmistakable ; yarrow, white and some- 
 times a little lilac, whose flower is perhaps 
 almost the last that the bee visits. In the 
 middle of October I have seen a wild bee on a 
 last stray yarrow." 
 
 Again we are in the forest, and again 
 ' cataloguing ' : 
 
 " The beechnuts are already falling in the 
 forest, and the swine are beginning to search 
 for them while yet the harvest lingers. The 
 nuts are formed by midsummer, and now, the 
 husk opening, the brown angular kernel drops 
 out. Many of the husks fall, too ; others 
 remain on the branches till next spring. 
 Under the beeches the ground is strewn with 
 the mast, as hard almost to walk on as pebbles. 
 Kude and uncouth as swine are in themselves, 
 somehow they look different under trees. The 
 brown leaves amid which they rout, and the 
 brown- tinted fern behind, lend something of 
 
THE COUNTRY LIFE. 239 
 
 their colour and smooth away their ungainli- 
 ness. Snorting as they work with very eager- 
 ness of appetite, they are almost wild, 
 approaching in a measure to their ancestors, 
 the savage boars. Under the trees the 
 imagination plays unchecked, and calls up the 
 past as if yew bow and broad arrow were still 
 in the hunter's hands. So little is changed 
 since then. The deer are here still. Sit down 
 on the root of this oak (thinly covered with 
 moss), and on that very spot it is quite possible 
 a knight fresh home from the Crusades may 
 have rested and feasted his eyes on the lovely 
 green glades of his own unsurpassed England. 
 The oak was there then, young and strong ; 
 it is here now, ancient, but sturdy. Earely 
 do you see an oak fall of itself. It decays to 
 the last stump ; it does not fall. The sounds 
 are the same the tap as a ripe acorn drops, 
 the rustle of a leaf which comes down slowly, 
 the quick rushes of mice playing in the fern. 
 A movement at one side attracts the glance, 
 and there is a squirrel darting about. There 
 is another at the very top of the beech yonder, 
 out on the boughs, nibbling the nuts. A 
 
240 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES 
 
 brown spot a long distance down the glade 
 suddenly moves, and thereby shows itself to 
 be a rabbit. The bellowing sound that comes 
 now and then is from the stags, which are 
 preparing to fight. The swine snort, and the 
 mast and leaves rustle as they thrust them 
 aside. So little is changed : these are the 
 same sounds and the same movements, just as 
 in the olden time. 
 
 " The soft autumn sunshine, shorn of summer 
 glare, lights up with colour the fern, the fronds 
 of which are yellow and brown, the leaves, the 
 gray grass, and hawthorn sprays already 
 turned. It seems as if the early morning's 
 mists have the power of tinting leaf and fern, 
 for so soon as they commence the green hues 
 begin to disappear. There are swathes of fern 
 yonder, cut down like grass or corn, the harvest 
 of the forest. It will be used for litter and 
 for thatching sheds. The yellow stalks the 
 stubble will turn brown and wither through 
 the winter, till the strong spring shoot comes 
 up and the anemones flower. Though the 
 sunbeams reach the ground here, half the 
 green glade is in shadow, and for one step that 
 
THE COUNTRY LIFE. 241 
 
 you walk in sunlight ten are in shade. Thus, 
 partly concealed in full day, the forest always 
 contains a mystery. The idea that there may 
 be something in the dim arches held up by 
 the round columns of the beeches lures the 
 footsteps onwards. Something must have been 
 lately in the circle under the oak where the 
 fern and bushes remain at a distance and wall 
 in a lawn of green. There is nothing on the 
 grass but the upheld leaves that have dropped, 
 no mark of any creature, but this is not de- 
 cisive ; if there are no physical signs, there is 
 a feeling that the shadow is not vacant. In the 
 thickets, perhaps the shadowy thickets with 
 front of thorn it has taken refuge and eluded 
 us. Still onward the shadows lead us in vain 
 but pleasant chase." 
 
 Next let us rise with the rustic and follow 
 him as he begins his day's work : 
 
 " The pale beams of the waning moon still 
 cast a shadow of the cottage, when the labourer 
 rises from his heavy sleep on a winter's morn- 
 ing. Often he huddles on his things and slips 
 his feet into his thick ' water-tights ' which 
 
 16 
 
242 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 are stiff and hard, having been wet over- night 
 by no other light than this. If the house- 
 hold is comparatively well managed, however, 
 he strikes a match, and his ' dip ' shows at the 
 window. But he generally prefers to save a 
 candle, and clatters down the narrow steep 
 stairs in the semi-darkness, takes a piece of 
 bread and cheese, and steps forth into the 
 sharp air. The cabbages in the garden he 
 notes are covered with white frost, so is the 
 grass in the fields, and the footpath is hard 
 under foot. In the furrows is a little ice 
 white because the water has shrunk from be- 
 neath it, leaving it hollow and on the stile is 
 a crust of rime, cold to the touch, which he 
 brushes off in getting over. Overhead the sky 
 is clear cloudless but pale and the stars, 
 though not yet fading, have lost the brilliant 
 glitter of midnight. Then, in all their glory, 
 the idea of their globular shape is easily ac- 
 cepted ; but in the morning, just as the dawn 
 is breaking, the absence of glitter conveys the 
 impression of flatness circular rather than 
 globular. But yonder, over the elms, above 
 the cowpens, the great morning star has risen, 
 
THE COUNTRY LIFE. 243 
 
 shining far brighter, in proportion, than the 
 moon ; an intensely clear metallic light like 
 incandescent silver. 
 
 "The shadows of the trees on the frosted 
 ground are dull. As the footpath winds by 
 the hedge the noise of his footstep startles the 
 blackbird roosting in the bushes, and he 
 bustles out and flies across the field. There 
 is more rime on the posts and rails around the 
 rickyard, and the thatch on the haystack is 
 white with it in places. He draws out the 
 broad hay-knife a vast blade, wide at the 
 handle, the edge gradually curving to a point 
 and then searches for the rubber or whet- 
 stone, stuck somewhere in the side of the rick. 
 At the first sound of the stone upon the steel 
 the cattle in the adjoining yard and sheds utter 
 a few low l moos/ and there is a stir among 
 them. Mounting the ladder, he forces the knife 
 with both hands into the hay, making a square 
 cut which bends outwards, opening from the 
 main mass till it appears on the point of part- 
 ing and letting him fall with it to the ground. 
 But long practice has taught him how to 
 balance himself half on the ladder, half on the 
 
 162 
 
244 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 hay. Presently, with a truss unbound and 
 loose on his head, he enters the yard, and 
 passes from crib to crib, leaving a little here 
 and a little there. For if he fills one first 
 there will be quarrelling among the cows, and 
 besides, if the crib is too liberally filled, 
 they will pull it out and tread it under 
 foot." 
 
 Here is the portrait from his book of the 
 Ked Deer : 
 
 " There is no more beautiful creature than 
 a stag in his pride of antler, his coat of 
 ruddy gold, his grace of form and motion. 
 He seems the natural owner of the ferny 
 coombes, the oak woods, the broad slopes 
 of heather. They belong to him, and he 
 steps upon the sward in lordly mastership. 
 The land is his, and the hills ; the sweet 
 streams and rocky glens. He is infinitely 
 more natural than the cattle and sheep that 
 have strayed into his domains. For some in- 
 explicable reason, although they, too, are in 
 reality natural, when he is present they look 
 as if they had been put there, and were kept 
 
THE COUNTRY LIFE. 245 
 
 there by artificial means. They do not, as 
 painters say, shade in with the colours and 
 shape of the landscape. He is as natural as 
 an oak, or a fern, or a rock itself. He is earth- 
 born, autochthon, and holds possession by 
 descent. Utterly scorning control, the walls 
 and hedges are nothing to him ; he roams 
 where he chooses, as fancy leads, and gathers 
 the food that pleases him. Pillaging the 
 crops, and claiming his dues from the orchards 
 and gardens, he exercises his ancient feudal 
 rights, indifferent to the laws of house-people. 
 Disturb him iii his wild stronghold of oak- 
 wood or heather, and as he yields to force, 
 still he stops and looks back proudly. He is 
 slain, but never conquered. He will not 
 cross with the tame park deer ; proud as a 
 Spanish noble, he disdains the fallow deer, and 
 breeds only with his own race. But it is 
 chiefly because of his singular adaptation and 
 fitness to the places where he is found that he 
 obtains our sympathy. The branching antlers 
 accord so well with the deep, shadowy boughs 
 and the broad fronds of the brake ; the golden 
 red of his coat fits to the foxglove, the purple 
 
246 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 heather, and later on to the orange and red of 
 the beech ; his easy-bounding motion springs 
 from the elastic sward ; his limbs climb the 
 steep hill as if it were level ; his speed covers 
 the distance, and he goes from place to place 
 as the wind. He not only lives in the wild, 
 wild woods and moors, he grows out of them 
 as the oak grows from the ground. The noble 
 stag, in his pride of antler, is lord and 
 monarch of all the creatures left in English 
 forests and on English hills." 
 
 What do we purblind mortals see when we 
 walk through a wood in winter ? Listen to 
 what Jefferies saw in January, when the woods 
 are at their very brownest, and all Nature 
 seems wrapped in winter sleep : 
 
 " Some little green stays on the mounds 
 where the rabbits creep and nibble the grasses. 
 Cinquefoil remains green though faded, and 
 wild parsley the freshest looking of all : plan- 
 tain leaves are found under shelter of brambles, 
 and the dumb nettles, though the old stalks 
 are dead, have living leaves at the ground. 
 Gray -veined ivy trails along, here and there is 
 
THE COUNTRY LIFE. 247 
 
 a frond of hart's-tongue fern, though withered 
 at the tip, and greenish- gray lichen grows on 
 the exposed stumps of trees. These together 
 give a green tint to the mound, which is not 
 so utterly devoid of colour as the season of the 
 year might indicate. Where they fail, brown 
 brake fern fills the spaces between the bram- 
 bles ; and in a moist spot the bunches of rushes 
 are composed half of dry stalks, and half of 
 green. Stems of willow-herb, four feet high, 
 still stand, and tiny long-tailed tits perch side- 
 ways on them. Above, on the bank, another 
 species of willow-herb has died down to a 
 short stalk, from which springs a living branch, 
 and at its end is one pink flower. A dande- 
 lion is opening on the same sheltered bank ; 
 farther on the gorse is sprinkled with golden 
 spots of bloom. A flock of greenfinches starts 
 from the bushes, and their colour shows against 
 the ruddy wands of the osier-bed over which 
 they fly. The path winds round the edge of 
 the wood, where a waggon-track goes up the 
 hill ; it is deeply grooved at the foot of the 
 hill. These tracks wear deeply into the chalk 
 just where the ascent begins. The chalk 
 
248 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 adheres to the shoes like mortar, and for some 
 time after one has left it each footstep leaves 
 a white mark on the turf. On the ridge the 
 low trees and bushes have an outline like the 
 flame of a candle in a draught the wind has 
 blown them till they have grown fixed in that 
 shape. In an oak across the ploughed field 
 a flock of wood-pigeons have settled ; on the 
 furrows there are chaffinches, and larks rise 
 and float a few yards farther away. The snow 
 has ceased, and though there is no wind on 
 the surface, the clouds high above have opened 
 somewhat, not sufficient for the sun to shine, 
 but to prolong the already closing afternoon a 
 few minutes. If the sun shines to-morrow 
 morning the lark will soar and sing, though it 
 is January, and the quick note of the chaffinch 
 will be heard as he perches on the little 
 branches projecting from the trunks of trees 
 below the great boughs. Thrushes sing every 
 mild day in December and January, entirely 
 irrespective of the season, also before rain." 
 
 Here is Cider-land : 
 
 " The Lower Path, after stile and hedge and 
 
THE COUNTRY LIFE. 249 
 
 elm, and grass that glows with golden butter- 
 cups, quietly leaves the side of the double 
 mounds and goes straight through the orchards. 
 There are fewer flowers under the trees, and the 
 grass grows so long and rank that it has already 
 fallen aslant of its own weight. It is choked, 
 too, by masses of clogweed, that springs up 
 profusely over the sight of old foundations ; 
 so that here ancient masonry may be hidden 
 under the earth. Indeed, these orchards are a 
 survival from the days when the monks 
 laboured in vineyard and garden, and mayhap 
 even of earlier times. When once a locality 
 has got into the habit of growing a certain 
 crop, it continues to produce it for century after 
 century ; and thus there are villages famous 
 for apple or pear or cherry, while the district 
 at large is not at all given to such culture. 
 
 " The trunks of the trees succeed each other 
 in endless ranks, like columns that support the 
 most beautiful roof of pink and white. Here 
 the bloom is rosy, there white prevails : the 
 young green is hidden under the petals that 
 are far more numerous than leaves, or even 
 than leaves will be. Though the path really 
 
250 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 is in shadow as the branches shut out the sun, 
 yet it seems brighter here than in the open, as 
 if the place were illuminated by a million tiny 
 lamps shedding the softest lustre. The light 
 is reflected and apparently increased by the 
 countless flowers overhead. 
 
 " The forest of bloom extends acre after 
 acre, and only ceases where hedges divide, to 
 commence again beyond the boundary. A 
 wicket-gate, all green with a film of vegetation 
 over the decaying wood, opens under the very 
 eaves of a cottage, and the path goes by the 
 door across a narrow meadow where deep 
 and broad trenches, green now, show where 
 ancient stews or fishponds existed, and then 
 through a farmyard into a lane. Tall poplars 
 rise on either hand, but there seem to be no 
 houses ; they stand in fact a field's breadth 
 back from the lane, and are approached by 
 footpaths that every few yards necessitate a 
 stile in the hedge. 
 
 " When a low thatched farmhouse does abut 
 upon the way, the blank white wall of the rear 
 part faces the road, and the front door opens on 
 precisely the other side. Hard by is a row of 
 
THE COUNTRY LIFE. 251 
 
 beehives. Though the modern hives are at 
 once more economical and humane, they have 
 not the old associations that cling about the 
 straw domes topped with broken earthenware 
 to shoot off the heavy downfall of a thunder- 
 storm. 
 
 " Everywhere the apple -bloom ; the hum of 
 bees ; children sitting on the green beside the 
 road, their laps full of flowers ; the song of 
 finches ; and the low murmur of water that 
 glides over flint and stone so shadowed by 
 plants and grasses that the sunbeams cannot 
 reach and glisten on it. Thus the straggling 
 flower-strewn village stretches along beneath 
 the hill and rises up the slope, and the 
 swallows wheel and twitter over the gables 
 where are their hereditary nesting-places. 
 The lane ends on a broad dusty road, and, 
 opposite, a quiet thatched house of the larger 
 sort stands, endways to the street, with an 
 open pitching before the windows. There, too, 
 the swallows' nests are crowded under the 
 eaves, flowers are trained against the wall, and 
 in the garden stand the same beautiful apple- 
 trees." 
 
252 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 Let us witness, with him, the dawn of a 
 summer day : 
 
 " The star went on. In the meadows of the 
 vale far away doubtless there were sounds of 
 the night. On the hills it was absolute silence 
 profound rest. They slept peacefully, and 
 the moon rose to the meridian. The pale 
 white glow on the northern horizon slipped 
 towards the east. After a while a change 
 came over the night. The hills and coombes 
 became gray and more distinct, the sky lighter, 
 the stars faint, the moon that had been ruddy 
 became yellow, and then almost white. 
 
 " Yet a little while, and one by one the 
 larks arose from the grass, and first twittering 
 and vibrating their brown wings just above 
 the hawthorn bushes, presently breasted the 
 aerial ascent, and sang at 'Heaven's Gate/ 
 
 " Geoffrey awoke and leaned upon his arm ; 
 his first thought was of Margaret, and he 
 looked towards the copse. All was still ; then 
 in the dawn the strangeness of that hoary relic 
 of the past sheltering so lovely a form came 
 home to him. Next he gazed eastwards. 
 
THE COUNTRY LIFE. 253 
 
 " There a great low bank, a black wall of 
 cloud, was rising rapidly, extending on either 
 hand, growing momentarily broader, darker, 
 threatening to cover the sky. He watched it 
 come up swiftly, and saw that as it neared it 
 became lighter in colour, first gray, then white. 
 It was the morning mist driven along before 
 the breeze, whose breath had not reached him 
 yet. In a few minutes the wall of vapour 
 passed over him as the waters rolled over 
 Pharaoh. A puff of wind blew his hair back 
 from his forehead, then another and another ; 
 presently a steady breeze, cool and refreshing. 
 The mist drove rapidly along ; after awhile 
 gaps appeared overhead, and through these he 
 saw broad spaces of blue sky, the colour grow- 
 ing and deepening. The gaps widened, the 
 mist became thinner ; then this, the first 
 wave of vapour, was gone, creeping up the 
 hillside behind him like the rearguard of an 
 army. 
 
 " Out from the last fringe of mist shone a 
 great white globe. Like molten silver, glow- 
 ing with a lusciousness of light, soft arid yet 
 brilliant, so large and bright and seemingly so 
 
254 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 near but just above the ridge yonder 
 shining with heavenly splendour in the very 
 dayspring. He knew Eosphoros, the Light- 
 Bringer, the morning star of hope and joy and 
 love, and his heart went out towards the 
 beauty and the glory of it. Under him the 
 broad bosom of the earth seemed to breathe 
 instinct with life, bearing him up, and from 
 the azure ether came the wind, filling his chest 
 with the vigour of the young day. 
 
 " The azure ether yes, and more than that ! 
 Who that has seen it can forget the wondrous 
 beauty of the summer morning's sky ? It is 
 blue it is sapphire it is like the eye of a 
 lovely woman. A rich purple shines through 
 it ; no painter ever approached the colour of 
 it, no Titian or other, none from the beginning. 
 Not even the golden flesh of Rubens 7 women, 
 through the veins in whose limbs a sunlight 
 pulses in lieu of blood shining behind the 
 tissues, can equal the hues that glow behind 
 the blue. 
 
 "The East flamed out at last. Pencilled 
 streaks of cloud high in the dome shone red. 
 An orange light rose up and spread about the 
 
THE COUNTRY LIFE. 255 
 
 horizon, then turned crimson, and the upper 
 edge of the sun's disk lifted itself over the 
 hill. A swift beam of light shot like an arrow 
 towards him, and the hawthorn bush obeyed 
 with instant shadow ; it passed beyond him 
 over the green plain, up the ridge and away. 
 The great orb, quivering with golden flames, 
 looked forth upon the world." 
 
 The finest of all the papers written by 
 Jefferies as I have already said is that called 
 " The Pageant of Summer." It came out in 
 Longmans Magazine. I know nothing in the 
 English language finer, whether for the sus- 
 tained style or for the elevation of thought 
 which fills it. Herein Jefferies surpassed him- 
 self as well as all other writers who have 
 written upon Nature. This is perhaps because 
 he fills the " Pageant " which he describes 
 with human love and human regrets. With- 
 out the life and presence of man, what is the 
 beauty of Nature worth ? I should like to 
 quote it all nay, to those who have read it 
 again and again, the words live in the memory 
 like the lines of Wordsworth's " Ode to Immor- 
 
256 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 tality," and like them they fill the heart with 
 tenderness and the eyes with tears. It is pub- 
 lished in the last but one of his books, " The 
 Life of the Fields," which everybody should 
 make haste to possess, if only for this one 
 paper. It opens quietly with the rushes : 
 
 " Green rushes, long and thick, standing up 
 above the edge of the ditch, told the hour of 
 the year as distinctly as the shadow on the 
 dial the hour of the day. Green and thick 
 and sappy to the touch, they felt like summer, 
 'soft and elastic, as if full of life, mere rushes 
 though they were. On the fingers they left a 
 green scent ; rushes have a separate scent of 
 green, so, too, have ferns, very different to that 
 of grass or leaves. Eising from brown sheaths, 
 the tall stems enlarged a little in the middle, 
 like classical columns, and heavy with their 
 sap and freshness, leaned against the hawthorn 
 sprays. From the earth they had drawn its 
 moisture, and made the ditch dry ; some of 
 the sweetness of the air had entered into their 
 fibres, and the rushes the common rushes 
 were full of beautiful summer. The white 
 
THE COUNTRY LIFE. 257 
 
 pollen of early grasses growing on the edge 
 was dusted from them each time the hawthorn 
 boughs were shaken by a thrush. These 
 lower sprays came down in among the grass, 
 and leaves and grass-blades touched. 
 
 " It was between the May and the June 
 roses. The may-bloom had fallen, and among 
 the hawthorn boughs were the little green 
 bunches that would feed the redwings in 
 autumn. High up the briars had climbed, 
 straight and towering while there was a thorn, 
 or an ash sapling, or a yellow-green willow to 
 uphold them, and then curving over towards 
 the meadow. The buds were on them, but 
 not yet open ; it was between the may and the 
 rose. 
 
 " As the wind, wandering over the sea, takes 
 from each w r ave an invisible portion, and brings 
 to those on shore the ethereal essence of ocean, 
 so the air lingering among the woods and 
 hedges green waves and billows became 
 full of fine atoms of summer. Swept from 
 notched hawthorn-leaves, broad-topped oak- 
 leaves, narrow ash sprays and oval willows ; 
 from vast elm cliffs and sharp-taloned brambles 
 
 1? 
 
258 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 under ; brushed from the waving grasses and 
 stiffening corn, the dust of the sunshine was 
 borne along and breathed. Steeped in flower 
 and pollen to the music of bees and birds, the 
 stream of the atmosphere became a living 
 thing. It was life to breathe it, for the air 
 itself was life. The strength of the earth went 
 up through the leaves into the wind. Fed 
 thus on the food of the Immortals, the heart 
 opened to the width and depth of the summer 
 to the broad horizon afar, down to the 
 minutest creature in the grass, up to the 
 highest swallow. Winter shows us Matter in 
 its dead form, like the primary rocks, like 
 granite and basalt clear but cold and frozen 
 crystal. Summer shows us Matter changing 
 into life, sap rising from the earth through a 
 million tubes, the alchemic power of light 
 entering the solid oak ; and see ! it bursts forth 
 in countless leaves. Living things leap in the 
 grass, living things drift upon the air, 
 living things are coming forth to breathe 
 in every hawthorn bush. No longer does the 
 immense weight of Matter the dead, the 
 crystallized press ponderously on the think- 
 
THE COUNTRY LIFE. 259 
 
 ing mind. The whole office of Matter is to 
 feed life to feed the green rushes, and the 
 roses that are about to be ; to feed the 
 swallows above, and us that wander beneath 
 them. So much greater is this green and 
 common rush than all the Alps. 
 
 " Fanning so swiftly, the wasp's wings are 
 but just visible as he passes ; did he pause, the 
 light would be apparent through their texture. 
 On the wings of the dragon-fly as he hovers 
 an instant before he darts there is a prismatic 
 gleam. These wing textures are even more 
 delicate than the minute filaments on a swal- 
 low's quill, more delicate than the pollen of a 
 flower. They are formed of matter indeed, 
 but how exquisitely it is resolved into the 
 means and organs of life ! /Though not often 
 consciously recognised, perhaps this is the 
 great pleasure of summer, to watch the earth, 
 the dead particles, resolving themselves into 
 the living case of life, to see the seed-leaf push 
 aside the clod and become by degrees the per- 
 fumed flower. From the tiny mottled egg 
 come the wings that by-and-by shall pass the 
 immense sea. It is in this marvellous trans- 
 
 172 
 
260 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 formation of clods and cold matter into living 
 things that the joy and the hope of summer 
 reside. Every blade of grass, each leaf, each 
 separate floret and petal, is an inscription speak- 
 ing of hope. Consider the grasses and the oaks, 
 the swallows, the sweet blue butterfly they are 
 one and all a sign and token showing before 
 our eyes earth made into life. So that my 
 hope becomes as broad as the horizon afar, 
 reiterated by every leaf, sung on every bough, 
 reflected in the gleam of every flower. There 
 is so much for us yet to come, so much to be 
 gathered, and enjoyed. Not for you or me, 
 now, but for our race, who will ultimately use 
 this magical secret for their happiness. Earth 
 holds secrets enough to give them the life of 
 the fabled Immortals. My heart is fixed firm 
 and stable in the belief that ultimately the 
 sunshine and the summer, the flowers and the 
 azure sky, shall become, as it were, interwoven 
 into man's existence. He shall take from all 
 their beauty and enjoy their glory. Hence it 
 is that a flower is to me so much more than 
 stalk and petals. When I look in the glass I 
 see that every line in my face means pessimism ; 
 
THE COUNTRY LIFE. 261 
 
 but in spite of my face that is my experience 
 I remain an optimist. Time with an un- 
 steady hand has etched thin crooked lines, and, 
 deepening the hollows, has cast the original 
 expression into shadow. Pain and sorrow 
 flow over us with little ceasing, as the sea- 
 hoofs beat on the beach. Let us not look at 
 ourselves but onwards, and take strength from 
 the leaf and the signs of the field. He is in- 
 deed despicable who cannot look onwards to 
 the ideal life of man. Not to do so is to deny 
 our birthright of mind. . . . 
 
 " It is the patient humble-bee that goes 
 down into the forest of the mowing-grass. If 
 entangled, the humble-bee climbs up a sorrel 
 stem and takes wing, without any sign of 
 annoyance. His broad back with tawny bar 
 buoyantly glides over the golden buttercups. 
 He hums to himself as he goes, so happy is he. 
 He knows no skep, no cunning work in glass 
 receives his labour, no artificial saccharine aids 
 him when the beams of the sun are cold, there 
 is no step to his house that he may alight in 
 comfort ; the way is not made clear for him 
 that he may start straight for the flowers, nor 
 
262 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 are any sown for him. He has no shelter if 
 the storm descends suddenly ; he has no dome 
 of twisted straw well thatched and tiled to 
 retreat to. The butcher-bird, with a beak like 
 a crooked iron nail, drives him to the ground, 
 and leaves him pierced with a thorn ; but no 
 hail of shot revenges his tortures. The grass 
 stiffens at nightfall (in autumn) and he must 
 creep where he may, if possibly he may escape 
 the frost. No one cares for the humble-bee. 
 But down to the flowering nettle in the mossy- 
 sided ditch, up into the tall elm, winding in 
 and out and round the branched buttercups, 
 along the banks of the brook, far inside 
 the deepest wood, away he wanders and 
 despises nothing. His nest is under the rough 
 grasses and the mosses of the mound, a mere 
 tunnel beneath the fibres and matted surface. 
 The hawthorn overhangs it, the fern grows by, 
 red mice rustle past. . . . 
 
 " All the procession of living and growing 
 things passes. The grass stands up taller and 
 still taller, the sheaths open, and the stalk 
 arises, the pollen clings till the breeze sweeps 
 it. The bees rush past, and the resolute 
 
THE COUNTRY LIFE. 263 
 
 wasps ; the humble-bees, whose weight swings 
 them along. About the oaks and maples the 
 brown chafers swarm, and the fern-owls at dusk, 
 andthe blackbirds and jays by day, cannot reduce 
 their legions while they last. Yellow butter- 
 flies, and white, broad red admirals, and sweet 
 blues ; think of the kingdom of flowers which 
 is theirs ! Heavy moths burring at the edge 
 of the copse ; green, and red, and gold flies : 
 gnats, like smoke, around the tree-tops ; midges 
 so thick over the brook, as if you could haul a 
 netful ; tiny leaping creatures in the grass ; 
 bronze beetles across the path ; blue dragonflies 
 pondering on cool leaves of water-plantain. 
 Blue jays flitting, a magpie drooping across 
 from elm to elm ; young rooks that have 
 escaped the hostile shot blundering up into 
 the branches; missel thrushes leading their 
 fledglings, already strong on the wing, from 
 field to field. An egg here on the sward 
 dropped by a starling ; a red ladybird creeping, 
 tortoise-like, up a green fern frond. Finches 
 undulating through the air, shooting them- 
 selves with closed wings, and linnets happy 
 with their young. . . . 
 
264 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 " Straight go the white petals to the heart ; 
 straight the mind's glance goes back to how 
 many other pageants of summer in old times 1 
 When perchance the sunny days were even 
 more sunny ; when the stilly oaks were full of 
 mystery, lurking like the Druid's mistletoe in 
 the midst of their mighty branches. A glamour 
 in the heart came back to it again from every 
 flower ; as the sunshine was reflected from 
 them, so the feeling in the heart returned ten- 
 fold. To the dreamy summer haze love gave 
 a deep enchantment, the colours were fairer, 
 the blue more lovely in the lucid sky. Each 
 leaf finer, and the gross earth enamelled be- 
 neath the feet. A sweet breath on the air, a 
 soft warm hand in the touch of the sunshine, 
 a glance in the gleam of the rippled waters, a 
 whisper in the dance of the shadows. The 
 ethereal haze lifted the heavy oaks and they 
 were buoyant on the mead, the rugged bark 
 was chastened and no longer rough, each 
 slender flower beneath them again refined. 
 There was a presence everywhere though un- 
 seen, on the open hills, and not shut out 
 under the dark pines. Dear were the June 
 
THE COUNTRY LIFE. 265 
 
 roses then because for another gathered. Yet 
 even dearer now with so many years as it were 
 upon the petals ; all the days that have been 
 before, all the heart-throbs, all our hopes lie 
 in this opened bud. Let not the eyes grow 
 dim, look not back but forward ; the soul 
 must uphold itself like the sun. Let us 
 labour to make the heart grow larger as we 
 become older, as the spreading oak gives more 
 shelter. That we could but take to the soul 
 some of the greatness and the beauty of the 
 summer ! 
 
 " I cannot leave it ; I must stay under the 
 old tree in the midst of the long grass, the 
 luxury of the leaves, and the song in the very 
 air. I seem as if I could feel all the glowing 
 life the sunshine gives and the south wind calls 
 to being. The endless grass, the endless 
 leaves, the immense strength of the oak ex- 
 panding, the unalloyed joy of finch and black- 
 bird ; from all of them I receive a little. Each 
 gives me something of the pure joy they gather 
 for themselves. In the blackbird's melody 
 one note is mine ; in the dance of the leaf 
 shadows the formed maze is for me, though 
 
266 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 the motion is theirs ; the flowers with a thou- 
 sand faces have collected the kisses of the 
 morning. Feeling with them, I receive some, 
 at least, of their fulness of life. Never could 
 I have enough ; never stay long enough 
 whether here or whether lying on the shorter 
 sward under the sweeping and graceful birches, 
 or on the thyme-scented hills. Hour after 
 hour, and still not enough. Or walking the 
 footpath was never long enough, or my 
 strength sufficient to endure till the mind was 
 weary. The exceeding beauty of the earth, 
 in her splendour of life, yields a new thought 
 with every petal. The hours when the mind 
 is absorbed by beauty are the only hours when 
 we really live, so that the longer we can stay 
 among these things so much the more is 
 snatched from inevitable Time. Let the 
 shadow advance upon the dial I can watch it 
 with equanimity while it is there to be watched. 
 It is only when the shadow is not there, 
 when the clouds of winter cover it, that the 
 dial is terrible. The invisible shadow goes on 
 and steals from us. But now, while I can 
 see the shadow of the tree and watch it slowly 
 
THE COUNTRY LIFE. 267 
 
 gliding along the surface of the grass, it is 
 mine. These are the only hours that are not 
 wasted these hours that absorb the soul and 
 fill it with beauty. This is real life, and all 
 else is illusion, or mere endurance. Does this 
 reverie of flowers and waterfall and song form 
 an ideal, a human ideal, in the mind ? It 
 does ; much the same ideal that Phidias sculp- 
 tured of man and woman filled with a godlike 
 sense of the violet fields of Greece, beautiful 
 beyond thought, calm as my turtle-dove before 
 the lurid lightning of the unknown. To be 
 beautiful and to be calm, without mental fear, 
 is the ideal of nature. If I cannot achieve it, 
 at least I can think it." 
 
 May we not say indeed, that never any man 
 has heretofore spoken of Nature as this man 
 speaks ? He has given new colours to the 
 field and hedge ; he has filled them with a 
 beauty which we never thought to find there ; 
 he has shown in them more riches, more 
 variety, more fulness, more wisdom, more 
 Divine order than we common men ever looked 
 for or dreamed of. He has taught us to look 
 
268 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 around us with new eyes ; he has removed 
 our blindness ; it is a new world that he has 
 given to us. "What, what shall we say what 
 can we say to show our gratitude towards 
 one who has conferred these wonderful gifts 
 upon his fellow-men 1 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 " THE STORY OF MY HEART." 
 
 IN the history of literature one happens, from 
 time to time, upon a book which has been 
 written because the author had no choice but 
 to write it. He was compelled by hidden 
 forces to write it. There was no rest for him, 
 day or night, so soon as the book was complete 
 in his mind, until he sat down to write it. And 
 then he wrote it at a white heat. For eighteen 
 years, Jefferies says, he pondered over this 
 book he means, that he brooded over these 
 and cognate subjects from the time of adoles- 
 cence. At last his mind was full, and then 
 but not till then he wrote it. 
 
 Those who have not read it must understand 
 at the outset that it is the book of one who 
 dares to question for himself on the most im- 
 
270 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 portant subject which can occupy the mind. 
 To some men very young men especially 
 it seems an easy thing to question and to go on 
 following the questions to their logical end. 
 An older man knows better ; he has learned, 
 perhaps by his own experience, that to carry 
 on unto the end such an inquiry, fearless of 
 whither it may lead, is an act requiring very 
 great courage, clearness and strength of mind, 
 and carelessness of other men's opinion. It is, 
 in fact, an act which to begin and to carry 
 through is beyond the courage and the mental 
 powers of most. I do not mean the so-called 
 intellectual process gone through by every 
 young man who takes up the common carping 
 and girding at received forms of religion, and 
 boldly declares among an admiring circle that 
 he renounces them all I mean a long, patient, 
 and wholly reverent inquiry by whatever line 
 or lines may be possible to a man. For it 
 must not be forgotten that, though there are 
 many lines of independent research and in- 
 quiry, there are few men to whom even one 
 is actually possible. This, however, we do 
 not openly acknowledge; every person, how- 
 
"THE STORY OF MY HEART." 271 
 
 ever illiterate and untrained, considers him- 
 self, not only free, but also qualified, to be an 
 advocate, or an opponent, of religion. Freedom 
 of thought is so great a thing that one would 
 not have it otherwise. As for the lines of 
 inquiry, scientific men, of whom there are 
 few, apply scientific methods to certain books 
 held sacred by the Church, with whatever 
 results may happen; some scientific men, 
 after this research, find that they can remain 
 Christians, others resigning, at least, the 
 orthodox form of that faith. Scholars of 
 language, mythology, Oriental antiquities, of 
 whom also there are comparatively few, may 
 approach the subject by these lines. Others, 
 like the late Mr. Cotter Morison, the like of 
 whom are rare, may consider the subject in 
 relation to the history, development, and 
 proved effect of certain doctrines upon 
 humanity. Others, again, assuming that the 
 pretensions of priests essentially belong to the 
 Christian religion, may compare these preten- 
 sions with those of other and older religions. 
 Again, the difficulty or impossibility of recon- 
 ciling statements in so-called inspired works, 
 
272 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 the incongruity of ancient Oriental customs 
 as compared with modern and European ideas 
 these and many other points, all of which 
 require a scholar to deal with them, may 
 furnish lines of investigation. But, indeed, the 
 modes of attack may be indefinitely varied. 
 On all sides, doctrinal religion has been, and 
 is daily, attacked; at all points it has been, 
 and is daily, defended to the full satisfaction 
 of the defenders. The assailants can never 
 perceive that they are beaten off at every 
 point ; the defenders can never be made to 
 understand that their stronghold has been 
 utterly demolished. 
 
 The Religious Problem at the present 
 moment has been, in fact, so far advanced 
 that research, defence, or attack by persons 
 not qualified by special education in one or 
 other of these lines is absolutely futile. For 
 the greater number, dulness of perception, 
 ignorance, want of early training, self-conceit, 
 and that sheer incapacity either to perceive or 
 to tell the truth which seems to be a special 
 firmity of the age, make research impossible, 
 attack futile, and defence powerless. And 
 
" THE STORY OF MY HEARTS 273 
 
 even for those who seem to have the right to 
 lead, the fact that we are born into the ideas of 
 our time, as well as into its creeds and tradi- 
 tions, is a dire obstacle to clearness of vision. 
 We are surrounded, from birth upwards, by 
 a network of ideas, many false, many con- 
 ventional, many mere prejudices. But, such 
 as they are, they tear the flesh if we try to 
 break through them ; by reason of these 
 bonds we cannot march straight, we cannot 
 see clearly. Education, reading, the litera- 
 ture, and the common talk of the day, so far 
 from helping us, seem only to raise up thicker 
 clouds about us which we cannot disperse, 
 neither can we pass through them. 
 
 Does, then, this act of superlative courage, 
 demanded by fearless inquiry, always lead the 
 man who has achieved it towards atheism or 
 agnosticism? Not so. The history of the 
 Churches shows that there have been many 
 men who have embarked upon such an inquiry 
 honestly and boldly, and have come out of it 
 armed and strengthened with a natural religion 
 upon which they have been able to graft a 
 Christianity far deeper, stronger, arid more real 
 
 18 
 
274 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 than that which is commonly taught in the 
 pulpits, the schools, the catechisms, and the 
 litanies of the Churches. But, as we said before, 
 such an inquiry is not possible for every man. 
 
 In Jefferies' " Story of My Heart " we have 
 a tale half told. You may read in it, if you 
 will, the abandonment, rather than the loss, 
 of his early faith ; you cannot read in it, but 
 you shall hear, if you persist to the end of this 
 volume, how he found it again. But the man 
 who has once thrown off the old yoke of 
 Authority can never put it on again. Hence- 
 forth he stands alone, yet not alone, for he is 
 face to face with his God. 
 
 Again, the network of custom and tradition 
 which lies around us contains all our friends 
 as well as ourselves. Those who are unlucky 
 (or lucky) enough to break through and to 
 get outside it have to separate themselves 
 from their friends ; they have to find new 
 friends which is difficult new companions, 
 at least. And then the novel position is a 
 kind of standing challenge to old friends. 
 The old equality is gone, because, if the 
 new philosopher is right, he is intellectually 
 
"THE STORY OF MY HEART." 275 
 
 far above his associates. And since friend- 
 ship cannot endure the loss of equality, the 
 ties of years are severed. Instead of the 
 warmth of friendship, one feels, with the 
 coldness, the reproach of isolation. This is a 
 consideration, however, which would weigh 
 little with Jefferies, who lived, of free choice, 
 in isolation. 
 
 Again, many men find a sufficient support 
 on the great questions of faith which they 
 seldom or never formulate to themselves in 
 the fact that certain men, whom they very 
 deeply venerate, believe in certain doctrines. 
 That such a man as Dean Stanley, for instance 
 a scholar, a man of unblemished life, whose 
 purity of soul and natural nobility of character 
 lifted him high above the average of man was 
 also a devout Christian, and a pillar of the 
 Church of England, has been, and is still, a solid 
 guarantee to thousands who remember his 
 example that the religion which was able to 
 light his feet through the valley of death, 
 and to sustain his heart while life was 
 ebbing, must be true. This is a kindly and a 
 natural aid to faith. And it is another illus- 
 
 182 
 
276 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 tration of the immense, the boundless in- 
 fluence of example. The mediaeval scholar 
 believed in the Christian religion because even 
 the horrible scandals of Kome could not des- 
 troy it. The modern Churchman modestly 
 and humbly believes his creed mainly because 
 men very greatly his superiors in learning 
 and in elevation of soul believe it, and find 
 in it their greatest consolation, and their only 
 hope. Jefferies had no such reverence. The 
 great leaders of the Church came not to the 
 Wiltshire Do wns. His own reason should suffice 
 for himself. Was he, therefore, presumptuous ? 
 While any rags of Protestant independence 
 and freedom of thought yet linger among us, 
 let us, a thousand times, say, No ! 
 
 Other men, as is well known, take refuge in 
 Authority. This seems so easy as to be ele- 
 mentary in its simplicity. Authority does not 
 interfere with the practical business of life, with 
 the getting as much wealth as we can, and as 
 much enjoyment as we can, while life lasts. 
 And after death Authority kindly assures us 
 that all shall be done for us to ensure ultimate 
 enjoyment of more good things. We cannot, 
 
" THE STORY OF MY HEART." 277 
 
 certainly, all seek into the origins and causes 
 of things ; some must listen and obey. There 
 is the Authority of example ; there is also the 
 Authority of Church rule and discipline But 
 Jefferies was one of those who cannot listen 
 and obey. 
 
 Most books which deal with the difficulties 
 and the loss of faith deal also largely at the 
 outset with the bitterness and the agonies of 
 the soul when doubt begins ; with the long 
 discussions based upon premises which are 
 first questioned tentatively, and then wholly 
 denied ; with the consequent estrangement of 
 friends ; with the laying down of one set of 
 shackles in order to take up another, as when 
 a man, after infinite heart-searchings, ex- 
 changes one little sect for another. 
 
 Others, again, who think it necessary to put 
 aside their religion, do so with a curious rage. 
 They vehemently despise, and have no words 
 too strong for their contempt of those who 
 refuse to follow them. As for the doctrines 
 themselves, they are these renegades cry 
 aloud unworthy the consideration of any 
 who have the least pretensions to intellect. 
 
278 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 Everybody knows this kind. The pervert 
 the renegade is the fiercest of persecutors, the 
 most intolerant in practice. The bitterness in 
 his mind is caused, or it is increased, by the 
 galling fact that though he is a rebel, he is 
 always, whatever sect he has abandoned, an 
 unsuccessful rebel. His old king yet reigneth ; 
 he cannot dethrone that king ; it is impossible 
 for him ; at the most he can but seduce from 
 their allegiance a few, and for all his railing 
 the loyal subjects of that king remain loyal. 
 
 Jeiferies, for his part, has no agonies of soul 
 to chronicle, nor does he watch for and set 
 down the stages of unbelief, nor does he tell 
 us of any arguments with friends. The 
 local curate is never considered or consulted ; 
 friends are neglected; and he is not in the 
 least degree angry with those who remain 
 loyal to their old religion. 
 
 In point of fact, this remarkable book never 
 mentions the old religion at all. This is a 
 very singular even an unique method of 
 treatment. There is no question of the 
 common lines of research : not one of them is 
 followed. The author begins, and he goes on, 
 
"THE STORY OF MY HEART." 279 
 
 with the assumption that there is no religion 
 at all which need be considered. On the 
 broad downs the only bell ever heard is the dis- 
 tant sheep-bell, the only hymn of praise is the 
 song of the lark. He has wandered among 
 these lonely hills until he has forgotten the 
 village church and all that he was taught 
 there. Everything has clean escaped his 
 memory. It is not that the old teaching no 
 longer guides his conduct ; the old teaching 
 no longer lives at all in his mind. 
 
 He has communed so much with Nature 
 that he is intoxicated with her fulness and her 
 beauty. Nothing else seems worth thinking 
 of. He lies upon the turf and feels the embrace 
 of the great round world. 
 
 " I used to lie down in solitary corners at 
 full length on my back, so as to feel the em- 
 brace of the earth. The grass stood high 
 above me, and the shadows of the tree-branches 
 danced on my face. I looked up at the sky, 
 with half- closed eyes to bear the dazzling light. 
 Bees buzzed over, sometimes a butterfly passed, 
 there was a hum in the air, greenfinches sang 
 
280 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 in the hedge. Gradually entering into the 
 intense life of the summer days a life which 
 burned around as if every grass-blade and leaf 
 were a torch I came to feel the long-drawn 
 life of the earth back into the dimmest past, 
 while the sun of the moment was warm on me. 
 . . . This sunlight linked me through the 
 ages to that past consciousness." 
 
 Again, he says that, wandering alone, he 
 spoke in his soul to the earth, the sun, the air, 
 and the distant sea far beyond sight : 
 
 " I thought of the earth's firmness I felt 
 it bear me up ; through the grassy couch there 
 came an influence as if I could feel the great 
 earth speaking to me. I thought of the wan- 
 dering air its pureness, which is its beauty ; 
 the air touched me and gave me something 
 of itself. I spoke to the sea, though so far, 
 in my mind I saw it, green at the rim of the 
 earth and blue in deeper ocean ; I desired to 
 have its strength, its mystery and glory." 
 
 Everything is so full of life, everything 
 around him, the grass-blades, the flowers, the 
 
"THE STORY OF MY HEART." 281 
 
 leaves, the grasshoppers, the birds ; all the air 
 is so full of life that he himself seems to live 
 more largely only by being conscious of this 
 multitudinous life. And at length he prays. 
 He prays for a deeper and a fuller soul, that he 
 may take from all something of their grandeur, 
 beauty, and energy, and gather it to himself. 
 In answer let us think to this prayer there 
 was granted unto him a Vision. To every man 
 who truly meditates and prays, there comes 
 in the end a Vision a Vision of a Flying 
 Roll ; a Vision of Four Chariots ; a Vision 
 of a Basket of Summer Fruit. To this man 
 came the Vision, rarely granted, of the 
 infinite possibilities in man. He saw how 
 much greater and grander he might become, 
 how his senses might be intensified, how his 
 frame might be perfected, how his soul might 
 become fuller. Morning, noon, and night he 
 sees this Vision, and he prays continually for 
 that increased fulness of soul which is the 
 chief splendour of his Vision. 
 
 " Sometimes I went to a deep, narrow valley 
 in the hills, silent and solitary. The sky 
 
282 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 crossed from side to side, like a roof supported 
 on two walls of green. Sparrows chirped in 
 the wheat at the verge above, their calls falling 
 like the twittering of swallows from the air. 
 There was no other sound. The short grass 
 was dried gray as it grew by the heat ; the 
 sun hung over the narrow vale as if it had 
 been put there by hand. Burning, burning, 
 the sun glowed on the sward at the foot of 
 the slope where these thoughts burned into 
 me. How many, many years, how many 
 cycles of years, how many bundles of cycles 
 of years, had the sun glowed down thus on 
 that hollow ? Since it was formed how long ? 
 Since it was worn and shaped, groove-like, in 
 the flanks of the hills by mighty forces which 
 had ebbed. Alone with the sun which glowed 
 on the work when it was done, I saw back 
 through space to the old time of tree-ferns, of 
 the lizard flying through the air, the lizard- 
 dragon wallowing in sea foam, the moun- 
 tainous creatures, twice elephantine, feeding 
 on land ; all the crooked sequence of life. The 
 dragon-fly which passed me traced a con- 
 tinuous descent from the fly marked on stone 
 
"THE STORY OF MY HEARTS' 283 
 
 in those days. The immense time lifted me 
 like a wave rolling under a boat; my mind 
 seemed to raise itself as the swell of the cycles 
 came ; it felt strong with the power of the 
 ages. With all that time and power I prayed: 
 that I might have in my soul the intellectual 
 part of it; the idea, the thought. Like a 
 shuttle the mind shot to and fro the past and 
 the present, in an instant. 
 
 " Full to the brim of the wondrous past, I 
 felt the wondrous present. For the day the 
 very moment I breathed, that second of time 
 then in the valley, was as marvellous, as 
 grand, as all that had gone before. Now, 
 this moment, was the wonder and the 
 glory. Now, this moment, was exceedingly 
 wonderful. Now, this moment, give me all 
 the thought, all the idea, all the soul ex- 
 pressed in the cosmos around me. Give 
 me still more, for the interminable universe, 
 past and present, is but earth ; give me 
 the unknown soul, wholly apart from it, 
 the soul of which I know only that when I 
 touch the ground, when the sunlight touches 
 
284 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 my hand, it is not there. Therefore the heart 
 looks into space to be away from earth. With 
 all the cycles, and the sunlight streaming 
 through them, with all that is meant by the 
 present, I thought in the deep vale and prayed." 
 
 Presently, the vague yearning this passion- 
 ate prayer for the realization of a splendid 
 Vision takes a more definite shape : 
 
 "First, I desired that I might do or find 
 something to exalt the soul, something to 
 enable it to live its own life, a more powerful 
 existence now. Secondly, I desired to be able 
 to do something for the flesh, to make a dis- 
 covery or perfect a method by which the fleshly 
 body might enjoy more pleasure, longer life, 
 and suffer less pain. Thirdly, to construct a 
 more flexible engine with which to carry into 
 execution the design of the will." 
 
 As for the soul, his prayer was for the life 
 beyond this. 
 
 " Eecognising my own inner consciousness, 
 the psyche, so clearly, death did not seem to 
 me to affect the personality. In dissolution 
 
" THE STORY OF MY HEART" 285 
 
 there was no bridgeless chasm, no unfathom- 
 able gulf of separation ; the spirit did not im- 
 mediately become inaccessible, leaping at a 
 bound to an immeasurable distance. Look at 
 another person while living ; the soul is not 
 visible, only the body which it animates. 
 Therefore, merely because after death the soul 
 is not visible is no demonstration that it does 
 not still live. The condition of being unseen 
 is the same condition which occurs while the 
 body is living, so that intrinsically there is 
 nothing exceptional, or supernatural, in the 
 life of the soul after death. Eesting by the 
 tumulus, the spirit of the man who had been 
 interred there was to me really alive, and very 
 close. This was quite natural, as natural and 
 simple as the grass waving in the wind, the 
 bees humming, and the larks* songs. Only 
 by the strongest effort of the mind could I 
 understand the idea of extinction; that was 
 supernatural, requiring a miracle; the im- 
 mortality of the soul natural, like earth. 
 Listening to the sighing of the grass I felt 
 immortality as I felt the beauty of the summer 
 morning." 
 
286 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 Three things, he says, were found twelve 
 thousand years ago by prehistoric man: the 
 existence of the soul, immortality, the Deity. 
 Since then, nothing further has been found. 
 Well, he would find something more. What 
 is it he would find ? It can only be discovered 
 by one who has that fulness of the soul for 
 which he prays. 
 
 "As I write these words, in the very 
 moment, I feel that the whole air, the sun- 
 shine out yonder lighting up the ploughed 
 earth, the distant sky, the circumambient 
 ether, and that far space, is full of soul- 
 secrets, soul-life, things outside the experi- 
 ence of all the ages. The fact of iny own 
 existence as I write, as I exist at this second, 
 is so marvellous, so miracle-like, strange, and 
 supernatural to me, that I unhesitatingly con- 
 clude I am always on the margin of life 
 illimitable, and that there are higher condi- 
 tions than existence. Everything around is 
 supernatural ; everything so full of unex- 
 plained meaning/' 
 
 It is only by the soul that one lives. As 
 
"THE STORY OF MY HEART." 287 
 
 for Nature, everything in her is anti-human. 
 Nothing in Nature cares for man. The earth 
 would let him perish, and would not trouble, 
 for his sake, to bring forth food or water. The 
 sun would scorch and burn him. He cannot 
 drink the sea. The wild creatures would 
 mangle and slay him. Diseases would rack 
 him. The very things which most he loves 
 live for themselves, and not for him. If all 
 mankind were to die to-morrow, Nature would 
 still go on, careless of his fate. There is no 
 spirit, no intelligence in Nature. And in the 
 events of human life, everything, he says, 
 happens by pure chance. No prudence in con- 
 duct, no wisdom or foresight, can effect any- 
 thing. The most trivial circumstance the 
 smallest accident is sufficient to upset the 
 deepest plan of the wisest mind. All things 
 happen by chance. This, then, is the melan- 
 choly outcome of all his passionate love of 
 Nature. It is to this conclusion that he has 
 been brought by his solitary communion with 
 Nature. Man is quite alone, he says, without 
 help and without hope of guidance. The 
 Deity but, then, what does he mean by a 
 
288 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 Deity ? He means, I think, only the popular 
 and vulgar conception suffers everything to 
 take place by chance. Yet there is, there must 
 be, because he feels it and sees it, something 
 higher and beyond. " For want of words I 
 write soul." 
 
 The book is full of this Vision of the Life 
 beyond the present ; he tries, but sometimes 
 in vain, to clothe his Vision with words. It 
 never leaves him. It is with him in the heart 
 of London, where the tides of life converge 
 to the broad area before the Royal Exchange. 
 If he goes to see the pictures in the National 
 Gallery, it is with him. If he looks at the 
 old sculpture in the Museum, it is still with 
 him. Always the dream of the perfect man 
 superior to death and to change ; perfect in 
 physical beauty, perfect in mind. 
 
 " I went down to the sea. I stood where 
 the foam came to my feet, and looked out over 
 the sunlit waters. The great earth bearing 
 the richness of the harvest, and its hills golden 
 with corn, was at my back ; its strength and 
 firmness under me. The great sun shone 
 
"THE STORY OF MY HEART." 289 
 
 above, the wide sea was before me, the wind 
 came sweet and strong from the waves. The 
 life of the earth and the sea, the glow of the 
 sun filled me ; I touched the surge with my 
 hand, I lifted my face to the sun, I opened my 
 lips to the wind. I prayed aloud in the roar 
 of the waves my soul was strong as the 
 sea and prayed with the sea's might. ' Give 
 me fulness of life like to the sea and the sun, 
 to the earth and the air ; give me fulness of 
 physical life, mind equal and beyond their 
 fulness ; give me a greatness and perfection 
 of soul higher than all things, give me my 
 inexpressible desire which swells in me like a 
 tide, give it to me with all the force of the sea.' 
 " Then I rested, sitting by the wheat; the 
 bank of beach was between me and the sea, 
 but the waves beat against it ; the sea was 
 there, the sea was present and at hand. By 
 the dry wheat I rested; I did not think ; I was 
 inhaling the richness of the sea; all the strength 
 and depth of meaning of the sea and earth 
 came to me again. I rubbed out some of the 
 wheat in my hands, I took up a piece of clod 
 and crumbled it in my fingers it was a joy 
 
 19 
 
290 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 to touch it I held my hand so that I could 
 see the sunlight gleam on the slightly moist 
 surface of the skin. The earth and sun were 
 to me like my flesh and blood, and the air of 
 the sea life. 
 
 " With all the greater existence I drew from 
 them I prayed for a bodily life equal to it, for 
 a soul-life beyond my thought, for my inex- 
 pressible desire of more than I could shape 
 even into idea. There was something higher 
 than idea, invisible to thought as air to the 
 eye ; give me bodily life equal in fulness to 
 the strength of earth, and sun, and sea ; give 
 me the soul-life of my desire. Once more I 
 went down to the sea, touched it, and said fare- 
 well. So deep was the inhalation of this life 
 that day, that it seemed to remain in me for 
 years. This was a real pilgrimage. " 
 
 There is much more a great deal more in 
 this remarkable book ; but what follows is 
 mostly an amplification of what has gone 
 before. He dwells upon the striving after 
 physical perfection, the sacred duty of every 
 man and woman to enrich and strengthen 
 
" THE STORY OF MY HEART." 291 
 
 their physical life, by care, exercise, and in 
 every possible way. 
 
 " I believe all manner of asceticism to be 
 the vilest blasphemy blasphemy towards the 
 whole of the human race. I believe in the flesh 
 and the body, which is worthy of worship 
 to see a perfect human body unveiled causes a 
 sense of worship. The ascetics are the only 
 persons who are impure. Increase of physical 
 beauty is attended by increase of soul beauty. 
 The soul is the higher even by gazing on 
 beauty. Let me be fleshly perfect." 
 
 Do not misunderstand him. This intense 
 craving after physical perfection, this yearning 
 after beauty, is not a sensual craving. It is 
 not the Greek's love of perfect form, though 
 Jefferies had this love, as well. It is far more 
 than this ; it means, in the mind of this man, 
 that without perfection of the body there can 
 be no perfect life of the soul. 
 
 In that letter where the Apostle Paul speaks 
 at length of Death and the Resurrection, he con- 
 cludes with the assurance he writes for his 
 own consolation, I think, as well as that of his 
 
 192 
 
292 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 disciples that the body, as well as the soul, 
 shall live again; but the body glorified, made 
 perfect and beautiful beyond human power of 
 thought, to be wedded to the soul purified 
 beyond human power of understanding. Is it 
 not strange that this solitary questioner, long- 
 ing and praying for a deeper and fuller under- 
 standing a fuller soul should also have 
 arrived at the perception of the wonderful truth 
 that the perfect soul demands the perfect 
 body ? In his mind there are no echoes 
 ringing of Paul's great Vision the whole of 
 his old creed, all of it, has fallen from him 
 and is lost: it is his own Vision granted to 
 himself. How ? After long and solitary medi- 
 tation on the hillside, as in the old times great 
 Visions came to those who fasted in their 
 lonely cells and solitary caves. Great thoughts 
 come not to those w T ho seek them not. The 
 mind which would receive them must be first 
 prepared. The example of Jefferies, whose 
 great thoughts only came to him after long 
 years of meditation apart from man, may make 
 us understand the Visions which used to reward 
 the monk, the fakir, the hermit of the lonely 
 laura. 
 
" THE STORY OF MY HEART." 293 
 
 Then he goes back to his theory that every- 
 thing happens by chance. So long as men 
 believe that everything is done for them, pro- 
 gress is impossible. Once grasp the truth that 
 nothing is done for man, and that he has 
 everything to do for himself, and all is possible. 
 Still, this is not a proof that chance rules the 
 world. And, again, the fact that man, alone 
 of created beings, is able to grasp this, or any 
 other truth, is not that gift everything in itself ? 
 
 " Nothing whatsoever is done for us. We 
 are born naked, and not even protected by a 
 shaggy covering. Nothing is done for us. 
 The first and strongest command (using the 
 word to convey the idea only) that nature, 
 the universe, our own bodies give is to do 
 everything for ourselves. The sea does not 
 make boats for us, nor the earth of her own 
 will build us hospitals. The injured lie bleed- 
 ing, and no invisible power lifts them up. The 
 maidens were scorched in the midst of their 
 devotions, and their remains make a mound 
 hundreds of yards long. The infants perished 
 in the snow, and the ravens tore their limbs. 
 
294 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 Those in the theatre crushed each other to the 
 death-agony. For how long, for how many 
 thousand years, must the earth and the sea, 
 and the fire and the air, utter these things and 
 force them upon us before they are admitted 
 in their full significance ? 
 
 " These things speak with a voice of thunder. 
 From every human being whose body has 
 been racked by pain, from every human being 
 who has suffered from accident or disease, 
 from every human being drowned, burned, or 
 slain by negligence, there goes up a continually- 
 increasing cry louder than the thunder. An 
 awe-inspiring cry dread to listen to, which no 
 one dares listen to, against which ears are 
 stopped by the wax of superstition, and the 
 wax of criminal selfishness: These miseries 
 are your doing, because you have mind and 
 thought, and could have prevented them. You 
 can prevent them in the future. You do not 
 even try. 
 
 " It is perfectly certain that all diseases 
 without exception are preventible, or if not so, 
 that they can be so weakened as to do no harm. 
 It is perfectly certain that all accidents are 
 
"THE STORY OF MY HEART." 295 
 
 preventible; there is not one that does not 
 arise from folly or negligence. All accidents 
 are crimes. It is perfectly certain that all 
 human beings are capable of physical happi- 
 nesss. It is absolutely incontrovertible that 
 the ideal shape of the human being is attain- 
 able to the exclusion of deformities. It is in- 
 controvertible that there is no necessity for 
 any man to die but of old age, and that if 
 death cannot be prevented life can be prolonged 
 far beyond the farthest now known. It is in- 
 controvertible that at the present time no one 
 ever dies of old age. Not one single person 
 ever dies of old age, or of natural causes, for 
 there is no such thing as a natural cause of 
 death. They die of disease or weakness which 
 is the result of disease, either in themselves or in 
 their ancestors. No such thing as old ageis known 
 to us. We do not even know what old age 
 would be like, because no one ever lives to it." 
 
 This remarkable book is a record almost, if 
 not quite, unique. The writer is not a man 
 of science; he has not been trained in logic 
 and dialectics, he is not a scholar, though he 
 
296 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 has read much. But he can think for himself, 
 and he has the gift of carrying on the same 
 line of thought unwearied, persistent, like a 
 bloodhound on the scent, year after year. 
 And as a record it is absolutely true; there 
 are no concealments in it, no affectations ; it 
 is all true. He has gone to Nature the 
 Nature he loves so well for an answer to the 
 problems that vex his soul. Nature replies 
 with a stony stare ; she has no answer. What 
 is man? She cares nothing for man. Every- 
 thing, so far as she knows, and so far as man 
 is concerned, takes place by chance. Then he 
 gets his Vision of the Perfect Soul, and it fills 
 his heart and makes him happy, and seems to 
 satisfy all his longings. And the old Christian 
 teaching, the prayer to the Father, the village 
 church and its services, the quiet churchyard 
 where are they? Out on the wild downs 
 you do not see or hear of them at all. They 
 are not in the whisper of the air, or in the 
 rustle of the grass -blades ; they are not in 
 the sunshine ; they are not in the cloud ; they 
 are not in the depths of the azure sky. 
 And so he concludes : 
 
"THE STORY OF MY HEART." 297 
 
 " I have only just commenced to realize the 
 immensity of thought which lies outside the 
 knowledge of the senses. Still, on the hills 
 and by the sea- shore, I seek and pray deeper 
 than ever. The sun burns southwards over 
 the sea and before the wave runs its shadow, 
 constantly slipping on the advancing slope 
 till it curls and covers its dark image at the 
 shore. Over the rim of the horizon waves 
 are flowing as high and wide as those that 
 break upon the beach. These that come to 
 me and beat the trembling shore are like the 
 thoughts that have been known so long ; like 
 the ancient, iterated, and reiterated thoughts 
 that have broken on the strand of mind for 
 thousands of years. Beyond and over the 
 horizon I feel that there are other waves of 
 ideas unknown to me, flowing as the stream 
 of ocean flows. Knowledge of facts is limit- 
 less, they lie at my feet innumerable like the 
 countless pebbles; knowledge of thought so 
 circumscribed ! Ever the same thoughts come 
 that have been written down centuries and 
 centuries. 
 
 " Let me launch forth and sail over the rim 
 
298 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 of the sea yonder, and when another rim arises 
 over that, and again and onwards into an ever- 
 widening ocean of idea and life. For with all 
 the strength of the wave, and its succeeding 
 wave, the depth and race of the tide, the clear 
 definition of the sky; with all the subtle 
 power of the great sea, there rises an equal 
 desire. Give me life strong and full as the 
 brimming ocean; give me thoughts wide as 
 its plain ; give me a soul beyond these. 
 Sweet is the bitter sea by the shore where 
 the faint blue pebbles are lapped by the green- 
 gray wave, where the wind- quivering foam is 
 loath to leave the lashed stone. Sweet is the 
 bitter sea, and the clear green in which the 
 gaze seeks the soul, looking through the glass 
 into itself. The sea thinks for me as I listen 
 and ponder : the sea thinks, and every boom 
 of the wave repeats my prayer. 
 
 " Sometimes I stay on the wet sands as the 
 tide rises, listening to the rush of the lines of 
 foam in layer upon layer; the wash swells 
 and circles about my feet, I lave my hands in 
 it, I lift a little in my hollowed palm, I take 
 the life of the sea to me. My soul rising to 
 
"THE STORY OF MY HEART." 299 
 
 the immensity utters its desire-prayer with all 
 the strength of the sea. Or, again, the full 
 stream of ocean beats upon the shore, and the 
 rich wind feeds the heart, the sun burns 
 brightly ; the sense of soul-life burns in me 
 like a torch. 
 
 " Leaving the shore, I walk among the trees ; 
 a cloud passes, and the sweet short rain comes 
 mingled with sunbeams and flower-scented air. 
 The finches sing among the fresh green leaves 
 of the beeches. Beautiful it is, in summer 
 days, to see the wheat wave, and the long 
 grass foam-flecked of flower yield and return 
 to the wind. My soul of itself always desires ; 
 these are to it as fresh food. I have found in 
 the hills another valley grooved in prehistoric 
 times, where, climbing to the top of the hollow, 
 I can see the sea. Down in the hollow I look 
 up ; the sky stretches over, the sun burns as 
 it seems but just above the hill, and the wind 
 sweeps onward. As the sky extends beyond 
 the valley, so I know that there are ideas 
 beyond the valley of my thought; I know 
 that there is something infinitely higher than 
 Deity. The great sun burning in the sky, the 
 
300 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 sea, the firm earth, all the stars of night are 
 feeble all, all the cosmos is feeble ; it is not 
 strong enough to utter my prayer-desire. 
 My soul cannot reach to its full desire of 
 prayer. I need no earth, or sea, or sun to 
 think my thought. If my thought-part 
 the psyche were entirely separated from 
 the body, and from the earth, I should of 
 myself desire the same. In itself my soul 
 desires ; my existence, my soul-existence is 
 in itself my prayer, and so long as it exists 
 so long will it pray that I may have the fullest 
 soul-life." 
 
CHAPTER XL 
 
 THE CHILD WANDERS IN THE WOOD. 
 
 THERE is a very delightful old story which 
 used to be given to children, though I have 
 not seen it for a long time in the hands of any 
 children. It was called " The Story without 
 an End." A child wandered among the 
 flowers, who talked to him. That is the 
 whole story. There were coloured pictures 
 in it. The story began without a beginning, 
 and it came to a sudden stop without an 
 ending. 
 
 It is perhaps upon a reminiscence of this old 
 story that Jefferies has based nearly all his 
 own. They are very delightful, especially the 
 shorter stories ; but they seldom have any 
 end. There is sometimes, but not often, a 
 story ; there is generally only a succession of 
 
3 o2 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 scenes some delightful, all beautiful, and all 
 original in the sense that nobody except 
 Jefferies could possibly have written any of 
 them. The child wanders. That is all. 
 Some day, when the worth of this writer is 
 universally recognised, these scenes and stories 
 will be detached from the papers with which 
 they are published, and issued in separate form, 
 as beautifully illustrated as the art of the next 
 generation this will not take place for another 
 generation will allow. 
 
 For instance, Guido they called him 
 Guido because they thought that in childhood 
 Guido the painter must have greatly resembled 
 this boy runs along the grassy lane at the 
 top of a bank between the fir-trees till he 
 comes to a wheat-field. Then he climbs 
 down into this field, and sees the most 
 wonderful things : lovely azure corn-flowers 
 " curious flowers with knobs surrounded 
 with little blue flowers, like a lady's bonnet. 
 They were a beautiful blue, not like any other 
 blue, not like the violets in the garden, or the 
 sky over the trees, or the geranium in the 
 grass, or the bird's-eyes by the path." Then 
 
THE CHILD WANDERS IN THE WOOD. 303 
 
 he wanders on, starting a rabbit, scaring a 
 hawk, and listening to the birds. Presently 
 he sits down on the branch of an oak, with 
 his feet dangling over a streamlet. Then he 
 remembers children do remember things in 
 the strangest way that if he wants to hear a 
 story, or to talk with the grass, he really must 
 not try to catch the butterflies. So he touches 
 the rushes with his foot, and says, " Eush, 
 rush, tell them I am here." Immediately 
 there follows a little wind, and the wheat 
 swings to and fro, the oak -leaves rustle, the 
 rashes bow, and the shadows slip forwards 
 and back again. After this, of course, the 
 nearest wheat-ear begins to talk. Now the 
 wheat has been so long growing for the use 
 of man that it has grown to love him. Think 
 of that! And it pains the wheat to see so 
 much misery and needless labour among the 
 people. Of course, we cannot expect a wheat- 
 ear to know that little boys do not understand 
 the problems of poverty and labour. 
 
 " ' There is one thing we do not like, and 
 that is, all the labour and the misery. Why 
 
304 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 cannot your people have us without so much 
 labour, and why are so many of you unhappy ? 
 Why cannot they be all happy with us as you 
 are, dear? For hundreds and hundreds of 
 years now the wheat every year has been 
 sorrowful for your people, and I think we 
 get more sorrowful every year about it, 
 because, as I was telling you just now, the 
 flowers go, and the swallows go, the old, old 
 oaks go, and that oak will go, under the shade 
 of which you are lying, Guido ; and if your 
 people do not gather the flowers now, and 
 watch the swallows, and listen to the black- 
 birds whistling, as you are listening now while 
 I talk, then Guido, my love, they will never 
 pick any flowers, nor hear any birds' songs. 
 They think they will, they think that when 
 they have toiled, and worked a long time, 
 almost all their lives, then they will come to 
 the flowers, and the birds, and be joyful in 
 the sunshine. But no, it will not be so, for 
 then they will be old themselves, and their 
 ears dull, and their eyes dim, so that the birds 
 will sound a great distance off, and the flowers 
 will not seem bright. 
 
THE CHILD WANDERS IN THE WOOD. 305 
 
 " 'Of course, we know that the greatest part 
 of your people cannot help themselves, and 
 must labour on like the reapers till their ears 
 are full of the dust of age. That only makes 
 us more sorrowful, and anxious that things 
 should be different. I do not suppose we 
 should think about them had we not been 
 in man's hand so long that now we have got 
 to feel with man. Every year makes it more 
 pitiful, because then there are more flowers 
 gone, and added to the vast numbers of those 
 gone before 3 and never gathered, or looked at, 
 though they could have given so much pleasure, 
 And all the work and labour, and thinking, 
 and reading, and learning that your people do 
 ends in nothing not even one flower. We 
 cannot understand why it should be so. There 
 are thousands of wheat-ears in this field, more 
 than you would know how to write down with 
 your pencil, though you have learned your 
 tables, sir. Yet all of us thinking, and talk- 
 ing, cannot understand why it is when we 
 consider how clever your people are, and how 
 they bring ploughs, and steam-engines, and 
 put up wires along the roads to tell you things 
 
 20 
 
306 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 when you are miles away, and sometimes we 
 are sown where we can hear the hum, hum, 
 all day of the children learning in the school. 
 The butterflies nutter over us, and the sun 
 shines, and the doves are very, very happy at 
 their nest, but the children go on hum, hum 
 inside this house, and learn, learn. So we 
 suppose you must be very clever, and yet you 
 cannot manage this. All your work is wasted, 
 and you labour in vain you dare not leave 
 it a minute. 
 
 " ' If you left it a minute it would all be 
 gone; it does not mount up and make a store, 
 so that all of you could sit by it and be happy. 
 Directly you leave off you are hungry, and 
 thirsty, and miserable like the beggars that 
 tramp along the dusty road here. All the 
 thousand years of labour since this field was 
 first ploughed have not stored up anything for 
 you. It w^ould not matter about the work so 
 much if you were only happy ; the bees \vork 
 every year, but they are happy; the doves 
 build a nest every year, but they are very, 
 very happy. We think it must be because 
 you do not come out to us and be with us 
 
THE CHILD WANDERS IN THE WOOD. 307 
 
 and think more as we do. It is not because 
 your people have not got plenty to eat and 
 drink you have as much as the bees. Why, 
 just look at us! Look at the wheat that 
 grows all over the world ; all the figures that 
 were ever written in pencil could not tell how 
 much, it is such an immense quantity. Yet 
 your people starve and die of hunger every 
 now and then, and we have seen the wretched 
 beggars tramping along the road. We have 
 known of times when there was a great pile 
 of us, almost a hill piled up; it was not in this 
 country, it was in another warmer country, 
 and yet no one dared to touch it they died 
 at the bottom of the hill of wheat. The earth 
 is full of skeletons of people who have died of 
 hunger. They are dying now this minute in 
 your big cities, with nothing but stones all 
 round them, stone walls and stone streets; 
 not jolly stones like those you threw in the 
 water, dear hard, unkind stones that make 
 them cold and let them die, while we are grow- 
 ing here, millions of us, in the sunshine with 
 the butterflies floating over us. This makes us 
 unhappy ; I was very unhappy this morning 
 
 202 
 
308 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 till you came running over and played with 
 us. 
 
 <f ' It is not because there is not enough: it 
 is because your people are so short-sighted, so 
 jealous and selfish, and so curiously infatuated 
 with things that are not so good as your old 
 toys which you have flung away and forgotten. 
 And you teach the children hum, hum, all 
 day to care about such silly things, and to 
 work for them, and to look to them as the 
 object of their lives. It is because you do not 
 share us among you without price or differ- 
 ence ; because you do not share the great earth 
 among you fairly, without spite and jealousy 
 and avarice ; because you will not agree ; you 
 silly, foolish people to let all the flowers wither 
 for a thousand years while you keep each other 
 at a distance, instead of agreeing and sharing 
 them! Is there something in you as there 
 is poison in the nightshade, you know it, dear, 
 your papa told you not to touch it is there a 
 sort of poison in your people that works them 
 up into a hatred of one another? Why, then, 
 do you not agree and have all things, all the 
 great earth can give you, just as we have the 
 
THE CHILD WANDERS IN THE WOOD. 309 
 
 sunshine and the rain? How happy your 
 people could be if they would only agree! 
 But you go on teaching even the little children 
 to follow the same silly objects, hum, hum, 
 hum, all the day, and they will grow up to 
 hate each other, and to try which can get the 
 most round things you have one in your 
 pocket. 7 
 
 " i Sixpence,' said Guido. l It's quite a new 
 one.' 
 
 " i And other things quite as silly/ the Wheat 
 continued. ' All the time the flowers are 
 flowering, but they will go, even the oaks will 
 go. We think the reason you do not all have 
 plenty, and why you do not do only just a 
 little work, and why you die of hunger if you 
 leave off, and why so many of you are unhappy 
 in body and mind, and all the misery is because 
 you have not got a spirit like the wheat, like 
 us ; you will not agree, and you will not share, 
 and you will hate each other, and you will be 
 so avaricious, and you will not touch the 
 flowers, or go into the sunshine (you would 
 rather half of you died among the hard stones 
 first), and you will teach your children hum, 
 
310 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 hum, to follow in some foolish course that has 
 caused you all this unhappiness a thousand 
 years, and you will not have a spirit like us, 
 and feel like us. Till you have a spirit like 
 us, and feel like us, you will never, never be 
 happy.' " 
 
 Was not that a fine talk for the child to 
 have with the wheat-ear? And there is more 
 of it, a great deal more in this story without 
 an end which you will find in the book called 
 " The Open Air." 
 
 Again, another boy not Guido by any 
 means, nor in the least like Guido had been 
 sent to gather acorns. He gathered a few, 
 dropped them, into his bag, and lay down in 
 the warm corner by the root of the tree to 
 sleep. There his grandmother found him, and 
 there she beat him. 
 
 " A wickeder boy never lived : nothing 
 could be done with the reprobate. He was 
 her grandson at least, the son of her daughter, 
 for he was not legitimate. The man drank, 
 the girl died, as was believed, of sheer starva- 
 
THE CHILD WANDERS IN THE WOOD. 311 
 
 tion : the granny kept the child, and he was 
 now between ten and eleven years old. She 
 had done and did her duty, as she understood 
 it. A prayer-meeting was held in her cottage 
 twice a week, she prayed herself aloud among 
 them, she was a leading member of the sect. 
 Neither example, precept, nor the rod could 
 change that boy's heart. In time perhaps she 
 got to beat him from habit rather than from 
 any particular anger of the moment, just as 
 she fetched water and filled her kettle, as one 
 of the ordinary events of the day. Why did 
 not the father interfere? Because if so he 
 would have had to keep his son: so many 
 shillings a week the less for ale. 
 
 " In the garden attached to the cottage there 
 was a small shed with a padlock, used to store 
 produce or wood in. One morning, after a 
 severe beating, she drove the boy in there and 
 locked him in the whole day without food. 
 It was no use, he was as hardened as ever. 
 
 "A footpath which crossed the field went 
 by the cottage, and every Sunday those who 
 were walking to church could see the boy in 
 the window with granny's Bible open before 
 
312 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFER1ES. 
 
 him. There he had to sit, the door locked, 
 under terror of stick, and study the page. 
 What was the use of compelling him to do 
 that? He could not read. 'No,' said the 
 old woman, 4 he won't read, but I makes him 
 look at his book.' 
 
 " The thwacking went on for some time, 
 when one day the boy was sent on an errand 
 two or three miles, and for a wonder started 
 willingly enough. At night he did not return, 
 nor the next day, nor the next, and it was as 
 clear as possible that he had run away. No 
 one thought of tracking his footsteps, or fol- 
 lowing up the path he had to take, which 
 passed a railway, brooks, and a canal. He 
 had run away, and he might stop away: it 
 was beautiful summer weather, and it would 
 do him no harm to stop out for a week. A 
 dealer who had business in a field by the canal 
 thought indeed that he saw something in the 
 water, but he did not want any trouble, nor 
 indeed did he know that someone was missing. 
 Most likely a dead dog ; so he turned his back 
 and went to look again at the cow he thought 
 of buying. A barge came by, and the steers- 
 
THE CHILD WANDERS IN THE WOOD. 313 
 
 woman, with a pipe in her mouth, saw some- 
 thing roll over and come up under the rudder: 
 the length of the barge having passed over it. 
 She knew what it was, but she wanted to reach 
 the wharf and go ashore and have a quart of 
 ale. No use picking it up, only make a mess 
 on deck, there was no reward - ' Gee-up ! 
 Neddy/ The barge went on, turning up 
 the mud in the shallow water, sending ripples 
 washing up to the grassy meadow shores, 
 while the moorhens hid in the flags till it was 
 gone. In time a labourer walking on the 
 towing-path saw 'it, 7 and fished it out, and 
 with it a slender ash sapling, with twine and 
 hook, a worm still on it. This was why the 
 dead boy had gone so willingly, thinking to 
 fish in the ' river/ as he called the canal. 
 When his feet slipped and he fell in, his 
 fishing-line somehow became twisted about 
 his arms and legs, else most likely he would 
 have scrambled out, as it was not very deep. 
 This w r as the end ; nor was he even remembered. 
 Does anyone sorrow for the rook, shot, and 
 hung up as a scarecrow? The boy had been 
 talked to, and held up as a scarecrow all his 
 
314 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 life : he was dead, and that is all. As for granny, 
 she felt no twinge: she had done her duty." 
 
 There is another chapter among these papers 
 which is a real story. It is, I am certain, a 
 true story, because the plot is not at all in the 
 manner of Jefferies. It is called, grimly, 
 " Field Play." The "Story of Dolly" it 
 should be called of hapless Dolly of Dolly 
 the village beauty. Would you like to see 
 how Jefferies can describe a beautiful woman? 
 
 t; So fair a complexion could not brown 
 even in summer, exposed to the utmost heat. 
 The beams indeed did heighten the hue of her 
 cheeks a little, but it did not shade to brown. 
 Her chin and neck were wholly untanned, 
 white and soft, and the blue veins roamed at 
 their will. Lips red, a little full perhaps ; 
 teeth slightly prominent, but white and gleamy 
 as she smiled. Dark-brown hair in no great 
 abundance, always slipping out of its confine- 
 ment and straggling, now on her forehead, 
 and now on her shoulders, like wandering 
 bines of bryony. The softest of brown eyes 
 under long eyelashes ; eyes that seemed to see 
 
THE CHILD WANDERS IN THE WOOD. 315 
 
 everything in its gentlest aspect, that could 
 see no harm anywhere. A ready smile on the 
 face, and a smile in the form. Her shape 
 yielded so easily at each movement that it 
 seemed to smile as she walked. Her nose was 
 the least pleasing feature not delicate enough 
 to fit with the complexion, and distinctly up- 
 turned, though not offensively. But it was 
 not noticed ; no one saw anything beyond the 
 laughing lips, the laughing shape, the eyes 
 that melted so near to tears. The torn dress, 
 the straggling hair, the tattered shoes, the un- 
 mended stocking, the straw hat split, the 
 mingled poverty and carelessness perhaps 
 rather dreaminess disappeared when once 
 you had met the full untroubled gaze of those 
 beautiful eyes. Untroubled, that is, with any 
 ulterior thought of evil or cunning ; they were 
 as open as the day, the day which you can 
 make your own for evil or good. So, too, like 
 the day, was she ready to the making." 
 
 The miserable, hapless fate of poor Dolly, 
 the horrible tragedy of her life and death, is 
 told with relentless truth and fidelity. In 
 
3i6 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 Arcadia such things may happen, and, I sup- 
 pose, do constantly happen. The story be- 
 longs properly to the chapter on English 
 country life last quarter of the nineteenth 
 century, which, when it is written, will, I 
 think, be taken altogether from the works of 
 Jefferies and Thomas Hardy. 
 
 "The Story of Bevis " is the story of 
 Guido writ large. It is also the story of 
 Jefferies himself as a boy. Observe, most 
 writers of fiction, if they were proposing to 
 write the story of a boy, would first create an 
 imaginary boy, and then surround him with 
 imaginary adventures, invented on purpose 
 for that boy. Jefferies does nothing of the 
 kind. It is not his method. He remembers 
 his own boyhood the most delightful part of 
 it when he played with his brother and his 
 cousin upon the shores of the lake behind the 
 farmhouse, and made his canoe, and paddled 
 about the water exploring the creeks and 
 islets, the bays and harbours of that wonderful 
 coast. The boy, Bevis, is, in fact, himself. 
 Therefore, he does all the things that Jefferies 
 and his brother did in their boyhood. Bevis 
 
THE CHILD WANDERS IN THE WOOD. 317 
 
 even makes a raft, and, when the raft is made, 
 he sails down the Mississippi as far as Central 
 Africa, where, of course, he encounters savages, 
 and has to fight them. To discover an un- 
 known island on such a voyage is an adven- 
 ture certain to be met with. To build a hut, 
 to provision a cave, and to dwell for a while 
 upon that island is another adventure equally 
 certain when one goes to Central Africa, and 
 there is no reason at all why such a story 
 should ever have any end. Consequently, 
 there is none only a full stop, and then a 
 line with " Finis " written under it. In fact, 
 there never was such a book of boy's make- 
 believe. Observe, if you please, a thing which 
 shows the real genius of the writer. It is that 
 you feel, all the time you are reading the book, 
 the village itself only a quarter of a mile from 
 Central Africa. The bailiff, and the dogs, and 
 the village lads are always coming across us in 
 the midst of the Central African jungle in 
 the most natural and absurd way. For 
 boys, as Jefferies remembered, are never 
 quite carried away by their own imagina- 
 tions. There are many very fine passages in 
 
318 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 the book, which has only one fault it is 
 three times as long as it should have been. 
 The conception is delightful. In the execu- 
 tion the author has not known when to stay 
 his hand. Perhaps one of those limitations of 
 which I have spoken already was an imperfect 
 faculty of selection. For boys, the story 
 should have been compressed into one volume. 
 One cannot understand, indeed, how his pub- 
 lishers consented to put forth the book in 
 three-volume novel form. Nobody, after the 
 first chapter, ' could possibly accept it as a 
 three-volume novel. But it contains many 
 very striking and beautiful and poetic pages. 
 For instance, Bevis watches the sunrise : 
 
 " The sun had not yet stood out from the 
 orient, but his precedent light shone through 
 the translucent blue. Yet it was not blue, 
 nor is there any word, nor is a word possible 
 to convey the feeling unless one could be built 
 up of signs and symbols like those in the book 
 of the magician, which glowed and burned to 
 and fro the page. For the blue of the precious 
 sapphire is thick to it, the turquoise dull: 
 
THE CHILD WANDERS IN THE WOOD. 319 
 
 these hard surfaces are no more to be com- 
 pared to it than sand and gravel. They are 
 but stones, hard, cold, pitiful: that which gives 
 them their lustre is the light. Through deli- 
 cate porcelain sometimes the light comes, and 
 it is not the porcelain, it is the light that is 
 lovely. But porcelain is clay, and the light 
 is shorn, checked, and shrunken. Down 
 through the beauteous azure came the Light 
 itself, pure, unreflected Light, untouched, un- 
 tarnished even by the dew- sweetened petal of 
 a flower, descending, flowing like a wind, a 
 wind of glory sweeping through the blue. A 
 luminous purple glowing as Love glows in 
 the cheek, so glowed the passion of the 
 heavens. 
 
 " Two things only reach the soul. By 
 touch there is indeed emotion. But the 
 light in the eye, the sound of the voice ! the 
 soul trembles and like a flame leaps to meet 
 them. So to the luminous purple azure his 
 heart ascended." 
 
 In " Wood Magic" Jefferies carries on the 
 story of "Bevis" and of Guido." The 
 
320 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 creatures all talk to the boy, which makes 
 going into the fields and woods a much more 
 delightful thing than it is to other boys, to 
 whom they will not address one single word. 
 There is a wicked weasel, for instance, caught 
 in a gin, who tells such abominable lies as one 
 may expect from a weasel. There is also a fable 
 about a magpie and a jay, which fails, somehow, 
 to arrest the reader. But when you have got 
 through the business with the creatures I do 
 not care in the least for them unless Bevis is 
 with them you presently arrive at a most 
 delightful chapter where Bevis is instructed by 
 the wind. It is such a wise, wise wind, it 
 knows so much. If Bevis will only re- 
 member the half of what the wind has taught 
 him! 
 
 " ' Bevis, my love, if you want to know all 
 about the sun, and the stars, and everything, 
 make haste and come to me, and I will tell 
 you, dear. In the morning, dear, get up as 
 quick as you can, and drink me as I come 
 down from the hill. In the day go up on the 
 hill, dear, and drink me again, and stay there 
 
THE CHILD WANDERS IN THE WOOD. 321 
 
 if you can till the stars shine out, and drink 
 still more of me. 
 
 "'And by-and-by you will understand all 
 about the sun, and the moon, and the star, 3 , 
 and the Earth which is so beautiful, Bevis. 
 It is so beautiful, you can hardly believe how 
 beautiful it is. Do not listen, dear, not for 
 one moment, to the stuff and rubbish they tell 
 you down there in the houses where they will 
 not let me come. If they say the Earth is 
 not beautiful, tell them they do not speak the 
 truth. But it is not their fault, for they have 
 never seen it, and, as they have never drank 
 me, their eyes are closed, and their ears shut 
 up tight. But every evening, dear, before 
 you get into bed, do you go to your window 
 the same as you did the evening the Owl 
 went by and lift the curtain and look up at 
 the sky, and I shall be somewhere about, or else 
 I shall be quiet in order that there may be no 
 clouds, so that you may see the stars. In the 
 morning, as I said before, rush out and drink 
 me up. 
 
 " ' The more you drink of me, the more you 
 will want, and the more I shall love you. 
 
 21 
 
322 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 Come up to me upon the hills, and your heart 
 will never be heavy, but your eyes will be 
 bright, and your step quick, and you will sing 
 and shout ' 
 
 " ' So I will/ said Bevis, ' I will shout. 
 Holloa!' and he ran up on to the top of the 
 little round hill, to which they had now re- 
 turned, and danced about on it as wild as 
 could be. 
 
 " ' Dance away, dear/ said the Wind, much 
 delighted. ' Everybody dances who drinks me. 
 The man in the hill there ' 
 
 '"What man?' said Bevis, ' and how did 
 he get in the hill; just tell him I want to 
 speak to him.' 
 
 " ' Darling/ said the Wind, very quiet 
 and softly, ' he is dead, and he is in the little 
 hill you are standing on, under your feet. At 
 least, he was there once, but there is nothing 
 of him there now. Still it is his place, and 
 as he loved me, and I loved him, I come very 
 often and sing here.' 
 
 " ' When did he die?' eaid Bevis. < Did I 
 ever see him?' 
 
 " ' He died just about a minute ago, dear; 
 
THE CHILD WANDERS IN THE WOOD. 323 
 
 just before you came up the hill. If you were 
 to ask the people who live in the houses, where 
 they will not let me in (they carefully shut 
 out the sun, too), they would tell you he died 
 thousands of years ago ; but they are foolish, 
 very foolish. It was hardly so long ago as 
 yesterday. Did not the Brook tell you all 
 about that? 
 
 " ' Now this man, and all his people, used 
 to love me and drink me, as much as ever 
 they could all day long and a great part of 
 the night, and when they died they still wanted 
 to be with me, and so they were all buried on 
 the tops of the hills, and you will find these 
 curious little mounds everywhere on the ridges, 
 dear, where I blow along. There I come to 
 them still, and sing through the long dry 
 grass, and rush over the turf, and I bring the 
 scent of the clover from the plain, and the 
 bees come humming along upon me. The sun 
 comes, too, and the rain. But I am here most; 
 the sun only shines by day, and the rain only 
 
 comes now and then. 
 
 ***** 
 
 " i There never was a yesterday,' whispered 
 
 212 
 
324 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 , the Wind presently, ' and there never will be 
 to-morrow. It is all one long to-day. When 
 the man in the hill was you were too, and he 
 still is now you are here ; but of these things 
 you will know more when you are older, that 
 is if you will only continue to drink me. 
 Come, dear, let us race on again.' So the 
 two went on and came to a hawthorn-bush, 
 and Bevis, full of mischief always, tried to slip 
 away from the Wind round the bush, but the 
 Wind laughed and caught him. 
 
 " A little further and they came to the fosse 
 of the old camp. Bevis went down into the 
 trench, and he and the Wind raced round 
 along it as fast as ever they could go, till 
 presently he ran up out of it on the hill, and 
 there was the waggon underneath him, with 
 the load well piled up now. There was the 
 plain, yellow with stubble ; the hills beyond 
 it and the blue valley, just the same as he had 
 left it, 
 
 " As Bevis stood and looked down, the 
 Wind caressed him and said, t Good-bye, 
 darling, I am going yonder, straight across 
 to the blue valley and the blue sky, where 
 
THE CHILD WANDERS IN THE WOOD. 325 
 
 they meet; but I shall be back again when 
 you come next time. Now remember, my dear, 
 to drink me come up here and drink me. 7 
 
 " ' Shall you be here?' said Bevis; 'are you 
 quite sure you will be here?' 
 
 " ' Yes/ said the Wind, ' I shall be quite 
 certain to be here; I promise you, love, I will 
 never go quite away. Promise me faithfully, 
 too, that you will come up and drink me, and 
 shout and race and be happy/ 
 
 " ' I promise,' said Bevis, beginning to go 
 down the hill ; ' good-bye, jolly old Wind.' 
 
 " ' Good-bye, dearest,' whispered the Wind, 
 as he went across out towards the valley. As 
 Bevis went down the hill, a blue harebell, who 
 had been singing farewell to summer all the 
 morning, called to him and asked him to 
 gather her and carry her home, as she would 
 rather go with him than stay now autumn 
 was near. 
 
 " Bevis gathered the harebell, and ran with 
 the flower in his hand down the hill, and as he 
 ran the wild thyme kissed his feet and said, 
 4 Come again, Bevis, come again.' At the 
 bottom of the hill the waggon was loaded now; 
 
326 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 so they lifted him up, and he rode home on 
 the broad back of the leader." 
 
 There is one more story. I must not quote 
 it, because it is too long, but I cannot pass it 
 over in silence. It will be found in " Nature 
 Round London." It is the story of a trout, 
 and it has always filled me with the most 
 profound and most sincere admiration. So 
 little did Jefferies understand that he was 
 here working out a picture of the most original 
 kind, of the deepest interest, that he actually 
 divides it in two, goes off to something else, 
 and then returns to it. His inexhaustible 
 mind scattered its treasures about as lavishly 
 as Nature herself scatters abroad her flowers 
 and her seeds, and with almost as little care 
 about arrangement, selection, and grouping. 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 I THINK that I have never read, in all the sad 
 chronicles of hapless authors, anything more 
 pitiful than the history of the last years of 
 this life so short, yet so rich in its sheaves of 
 golden grain and piles of purple fruit. Every- 
 thing possible of long-continued torture, neces- 
 sity of work, poverty, anxiety, and hope of 
 recovery continually deferred, are crammed 
 into the miserable record which closes this 
 volume. 
 
 Jefferies fell ill in December, 1881, five years 
 and a half before the end. He was attacked 
 by a disease for which an operation of a very 
 severe and painful nature is the only cure. It 
 is, however, one which, in the hands of a skil- 
 ful surgeon, is generally successful. Horrible 
 
328 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 to relate, in his case, the operation proved 
 unsuccessful, and had to be repeated again 
 and again. Four times in twelve months the 
 dreadful surgeon's knife was used upon this 
 poor sufferer. For a whole year he could do 
 no work at all. The modest savings of the 
 preceding years were spent upon the physicians 
 and the surgeons, and in the maintenance of 
 his household, while the pen of the bread- 
 winner was perforce resting. Before he was 
 able to take pen in hand again, he was reduced 
 to something approaching destitution. You 
 shall read directly how, when he recovered, hope 
 immediately returned, and he was once more 
 happy in the thought that now he could again 
 work, though it was to begin the world once 
 more. Alas ! the interval of hope was brief 
 indeed. Another, and a more mysterious dis- 
 ease attacked him. He felt an internal pain 
 constantly gnawing him ; he could not eat 
 without pain ; he grew daily weaker ; he was 
 at last no longer able to walk ; he could only 
 crawl. 
 
 Henceforth his days and nights were a long 
 struggle against suffering, with a determina- 
 
CONCLUSION. 329 
 
 tion, however, to go on with his work. Nothing 
 more wonderful than the courage and resolu- 
 tion of this man. As in youth he had resolved 
 to succeed somehow, though as yet ignorant of 
 the better way, so now he would not be beaten 
 by pain. His very best work, the work which 
 will cause him to live, the work which places 
 him among the writers of his country, to be 
 remembered and to be read long after the men 
 of his generation are dead and forgotten, was 
 actually done while he was in this suffering. 
 /The " Pageant of Summer," for example : well, 
 the "Pageant of Summer" reads as if it were 
 the work of a man revelling in the warmth of 
 the quivering air ; of a man in perfect health 
 and strength, body and mind at ease, sur- 
 rendered wholly to the influence of the flowers 
 and the sunshine, at peace, save for the natural 
 sadness of one who communes much with him- 
 self on change, decay, and death. j And yet the 
 "Pageant of Summer" was written while he was 
 in deadly pain and torture. Again, between 
 1883 and 1886 he published those collections 
 of papers called "Life in the Fields" and 
 " The Open Air." He also wrote " Ked Deer," 
 
330 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 " Amaryllis," and a quantity of papers which 
 have yet to be collected and published. If, 
 even for a moment, he had an interval of 
 strength, his busy pen began again to race 
 over the paper, hasting to set down the 
 thoughts that filled his brain. 
 
 His disease was discovered, after a period of 
 intense suffering, to be an ulceration of the 
 small intestine. It was weakness induced by 
 this disease, which caused other complications, 
 under which he gradually sank. 
 
 I suppose that Jefferies could never be con- 
 sidered a strong man. As a boy, tall, active, 
 nervous, he was muscularly weaker than his 
 younger brother. At the age of eighteen he 
 showed symptoms which caused fear of a 
 decline. Perhaps his intense love of the open 
 air indicated the kind of medicine which he 
 most needed. When he could no longer go 
 into the open air he died. Perhaps, too, the 
 consciousness of physical weakness, the sense 
 of impending early death, caused him to yearn 
 with so much longing after physical perfection 
 and the fuller life which he clearly saw was 
 possible. Those who are doomed to die young 
 
CONCLUSION. 331 
 
 as has been often observed have the deepest 
 sense and the keenest enjoyment of life. 
 
 Still, though not a strong man, he was ap- 
 parently a healthy man. He lived at all times 
 a simple and a healthy life ; there was nothing 
 to show that he was going to be struck down 
 by so cruel an illness. 
 
 The period of greatest suffering seems to 
 have been in the year 1884. The weakness 
 following it set in some time during the year 
 1885. 
 
 He writes to Mr. Charles Longman in May 
 of the latter year : 
 
 " Your suggestion" that he should write a 
 year-book of Nature " of a diary out of doors 
 would no doubt make a good book, and I shall 
 give serious thought to it. My great difficulty 
 is the physical difficulty of writing. Since the 
 spine gave way, there is no position in which 
 I can lie or sit so as to use a pen without 
 distress. Even a short letter like this is 
 painful. Consequently, a vast mass of ideas 
 go into space, for I cannot write them 
 down." 
 
332 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 In August he returns to the subject: 
 
 " Many thanks for your kind letter and 
 interest in my weakness. I sometimes rather 
 need moral support of this sort, for after so 
 long the spirits show signs of flagging, and 
 the way seems endless. Such sympathy, 
 therefore, helps me very much. ... I should 
 have liked to have written the book you pro- 
 posed. I made several attempts, but it never 
 satisfied me. I am glad, at all events, that 
 you have forgiven my unintentional nonfulfil- 
 ment of the promise. Even yet, perhaps, I 
 may do something in that direction. Pro- 
 fessor Gamgee, under whom I have been 
 lately, says that complete recovery would 
 follow a few weeks' basking in South Africa, 
 or, failing that, Southern Europe. There is 
 plenty of energy in me still. I sometimes 
 dream of using the rifle a dream, indeed, 
 to a man who can with difficulty drag himself 
 across a field. " 
 
 In June he writes to his friend, Mr. C. P. 
 Scott, of the Manchester Guardian : 
 
CONCLUSION. 333 
 
 <; Since I last wrote to you I have been 
 very seriously ill. The starvation went on 
 and on, and no one could relieve it, till I had 
 to stay in the bedroom, and finally went to 
 bed, fainting nearly all day and night, and yet 
 craving for food, half delirious, and in the most 
 dreadful state. How I endured I cannot tell. 
 At last I had Dr. Kidd down from London, 
 and in forty-eight hours his treatment checked 
 the disease, I got downstairs, next, out of 
 doors in a Bath-chair, and now I can walk 
 two hundred yards. But I am still the veriest 
 shadow of a man my nerves are gone to 
 pieces and he warns me that it will take 
 months to effect a cure. Of that, however, 
 he is certain. Under his advice I have left 
 Eltham, and am staying here (Rotherfield, 
 Sussex) till a cottage can be found for me 
 near Tunbridge Wells. . . . My last piece of 
 MS. appears in Longman this month, and I 
 havo now no more left, having exhausted all I 
 wrote when able. At least, there remains but 
 one piece ' Nature in the Louvre.' It is 
 about a beautiful statue that interested me 
 greatly, and which seems to have escaped 
 
334 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 notice in England. I think you would like 
 the ideas expressed in it." 
 
 At this time it was suggested that he should 
 make an application to the Eoyal Literary 
 Fund. He writes both to Mr. Longman and 
 to Mr. Scott in the strongest terms upon the 
 subject. I do not, for my own part, in the 
 least agree with Jefferies in his wholesale con- 
 demnation of that useful society, and therefore 
 have the less hesitation in printing what he 
 says of it : 
 
 'August 18, 1885. 
 
 " You have put before mo a very great 
 temptation. It is impossible for you to know 
 how great, for there can be no doubt that it 
 is the winter that is my enemy. Last winter 
 I was indoors six months in fact, it was eight 
 before I really got out of doors, most of this 
 time helpless, sitting in an easy- chair before 
 the fire, my feet on a pillow, and legs wrapped 
 up in a railway-rug, up and down stairs on 
 hands and knees, and unable even to dress 
 myself. Even now it tears me to pieces even 
 
CONCLUSION. 335 
 
 to walk a short distance. So that to pass next 
 winter in warmth seems almost like life, besides 
 the great possibility of complete recovery. 
 There would be also the pleasure of the sights 
 and scenes of Algiers or South Africa. In 
 short, it has been a very great temptation, and 
 I am sure it was most kind of you to think of 
 me. But the Eoyal Literary Fund is a thing 
 to accept aid from which humiliates the re- 
 cipient past all bounds ; it is worse than the 
 workhouse. If long illness ultimately drove 
 me to the workhouse, I should feel no disgrace, 
 having done my utmost to fight with diffi- 
 culties. Everyone has a right to that last 
 relief. If this fund were maintained by press- 
 men, authors, journalists, editors, publishers, 
 newspaper proprietors, and so on, that would 
 be quite another matter. There would be no 
 humiliation rather the contrary and in time 
 one might subscribe some day and help some- 
 one else. It is no such thing. It is kept up 
 by dukes and marquises, lords and titled 
 people, with a Prince at their head, and a 
 vast quantity of trumpet-blowing, in order 
 that these people may say they are patrons 
 
336 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 of literature ! Patrons of literature I Was 
 there ever such a disgrace in the nineteenth 
 century ? Patrons of literature ! The thing 
 is simply abominable ! I dare soy if I were a 
 town-born man I should not think so, but to 
 me it wears an aspect of standing insult. 
 
 " No doubt we ought to combine all who 
 have ever touched a pen then we could assist 
 each other in a straightforward and manly way. 
 
 " The temptation to me is very great indeed, 
 because there is no question that I have been 
 slowly sinking for years for want of some such 
 travel or stimulus working through the nervous 
 system. But I have made up my mind to say 
 no. I would rather run the risk of quitting 
 this world altogether next winter than degrade 
 myself in that way. 
 
 " I am trying all 1 can to move altogether 
 to the neighbourhood of the sea. Possibly, 
 even Dorset or Devon might answer ; or, 
 failing that, I may try to pay a short visit 
 to Schwalbach, and see if the natural iron 
 medicine of a mineral spring may do what 
 compound physic cannot. But I fancy the sea 
 residence would be preferable. 
 
CONCLUSION. 337 
 
 " Change is the only thing that as yet has 
 affected me, which seems to point conclu- 
 sively to an exhausted system rather than 
 to disease." 
 
 To Mr. Scott he writes in a similar strain. 
 It galls him to think of being " patronized," 
 and, indeed, if that were the view taken by 
 the council of the Eoyal Literary Fund, I, for 
 one, should be the first to agree with him. 
 But it is not. Jefferies was wrong about the 
 supporters of the Fund which is, in fact, 
 assisted by everybody who ever makes any 
 success in literature, and by every writer of any 
 distinction either in letters or in other fields. 
 He adds, however, a paragraph in which I 
 cordially agree, and to the carrying out of the 
 suggestion contained in it some of us have, 
 during the last three years, devoted a great 
 deal of time and effort. 
 
 " We ought, of course, to have a real Literary 
 Association, to which subscription should be 
 almost semi-compulsory. We ought to have 
 some organization. Literature is young yet 
 
 22 
 
3jS THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 scarce fifty years old. The legal and medical 
 professions have had a start of a thousand 
 years. Our profession is young yet, but will 
 be the first of all in the time to come." 
 
 He goes on to speak of his health : 
 
 " Ever since Christmas 1 have been trying 
 to move to the sea-coast, but I cannot effect it. 
 I cannot stick to work long enough to produce 
 any result, the extreme weakness will not let 
 me, so that I cannot do anything. Whatever 
 I wish to do, it seems as if a voice said, ' No, 
 you shall not do it. Feebleness forbids/ I 
 think I should like a good walk. No. I think 
 I should like to write. No. I think 1 should 
 like to rest. No. Always No to everything. 
 Even writing this letter has made the spine 
 ache almost past endurance. I cannot convey 
 to you how miserable it is to be impotent ; to 
 feel yourself full of ideas and work, and to be 
 unable to effect anything; to sit and waste the 
 hours. It is absolutely maddening." 
 
 In November he writes again. He is at 
 Crowboroug.h, where the fine air at first seemed 
 
CONCLUSION. 339 
 
 to be restoring him. He could walk about in 
 the field at the back of the house. 
 
 " Suddenly I went down as if I had been 
 shot. All the improvement was lost, and now 
 I have been indoors three months, steadily 
 becoming weaker and more emaciated every 
 day. It is, in fact, starvation. They cannot 
 feed me, try what they will. No one would 
 believe what misery it is, and what extreme 
 debility it produces. The worst of all is the 
 helplessness. Often I am compelled to sit or 
 lie for days and think, think, till I feel as if I 
 should become insane, for my mind seems as 
 clear as ever, and the anxiety and eager desire 
 to do something is as strong as in my best 
 days. There is an ancient story of a living 
 man tied to a dead one, and that is like me; 
 mind alive and body dead. I fear that my 
 old friends will give me up in time, because I 
 cannot travel the path of friendship now, and 
 the Cymric proverb says that it soon grows 
 covered with briars." 
 
 A letter, dated June 19, 1886, is too sad to 
 
 222 
 
340 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 be quoted. His dependence on others, even 
 for the putting on of his clothes, his longing 
 for the sea-coast, which he thinks is certain to 
 do him good, his lament over the poverty 
 which, through no fault of his own, has 
 fallen upon him, fill up this melancholy 
 letter. Day and night there is no cessation 
 of pain. 
 
 Help of all kinds was forthcoming from 
 friends whom one must not name : money, 
 the offer of a house on the sea-coast ; but there 
 was the difficulty of travelling. How was he to 
 be moved ? This difficulty was got over, and 
 he went to Bexhill for a time, returning to 
 Crowborough in September. The sea had 
 done him good. On the night of his return, 
 he enjoyed a tranquil sleep for some hours, 
 and awoke without pain. 
 
 Among the letters sent to me by Mr. Scott 
 is one from a well-known physician who had 
 been consulted on the case. 
 
 " There is no doubt," he says, "that there 
 is some tuberculous affection of his lungs, 
 though, so far as I have been able to make 
 
CONCLUSION. 341 
 
 out, this does not seem to be at all in an 
 active state. 
 
 " The serious complaints which make his life 
 a misery to him I believe to be purely func- 
 tional. He strikes me as being a very marked 
 example of hysteria in man, though in his 
 case, as in many among women, the commoner 
 phenomena of hysteria are absent. I am sur- 
 prised to hear that he spoke warmly of my 
 treatment, for he would not admit to his 
 ordinary attendant, nor to me, that his 
 symptoms had undergone any palliation what- 
 ever. He is prejudiced against any treatment, 
 and the result, according to him, always agrees 
 with his prediction." 
 
 Evidently an extremely difficult and nervous 
 patient to treat. But that might be expected. 
 In October of 1886, Mr. Scott proposed to raise 
 a fund among the friends and admirers of his 
 works which should be devoted to sending him 
 to a warmer climate. He consented, though 
 with pain and bitterness of soul. " I have 
 written," he says, "fourteen books." He 
 enumerates them. " Scarcely anyone living 
 
342 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 has done so much." Yet he forgets to con- 
 sider for how small and select an audience he 
 has written. " All of them have been praised 
 by the reviews. I cannot help feeling it hard, 
 after so much work, to come to such disgrace." 
 It was hard, it was cruelly hard. While the 
 pensions of the Civil List a breach of trust if 
 ever there was one are bestowed upon 
 daughters of distinguished officers and widows 
 of civil servants, such a man as JefFeries, for 
 whose assistance the grant is yearly asked and 
 voted, is left to starve. It is indeed cruelly 
 hard on literature that the rulers of the country 
 should be so blind, so deaf, so pitiless so dis- 
 honest. They made Burns a gauger. Well : 
 that was something. Could they not have made 
 JefFeries a police-constable, for instance 1 They 
 gave him nothing : it would have been useless 
 to ask any Government to give anything : they 
 wanted all the money for persons for whom it 
 was never intended. There never has been 
 there is not now not even at a time when 
 Prime Ministers and ex -Cabinet Ministers 
 write articles for monthly magazines, any 
 Government which has had the least concern 
 
CONCLUSION. 343 
 
 for, knowledge of, or touch with, literature, 
 or its makers. Authors must develop and 
 increase their own Society, and then they will 
 not have to ask the Government for any Civil 
 Pension list at all, and ministers may go on 
 asking for the grant for the support of science 
 and letters, and giving it all to their own 
 creatures, and to the daughters, widows, and 
 sisters of officers. It is hard, it is cruelly 
 hard, as Jefferies said : it is a hardship and a 
 disgrace to all of us that such a man as 
 Jefferies should " come to such disgrace." 
 
 Well, the fund was raised, quietly, among 
 the private friends of its promoters. But it 
 came too late for the Algerian or South African 
 expedition. The sick man was sent, however, 
 to the seaside ; to a house at Goring, on the 
 Sussex coast. From this place he wrote to 
 Mr. Scott a little history of his illness, the 
 nature of which I have already sketched. 
 The description by a highly-sensitive man, 
 then in a most nervous condition, of the 
 horrible pain which he had been enduring is 
 most terrible to read, and is altogether too 
 terrible to be quoted. I dare not quote the 
 
344 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 whole of this dreadful story of long-continued 
 agony. Take, however, the end of it. At 
 last his wounds were somehow made to heal. 
 
 " Now imagine my joy. The wounds were 
 well at last. I was free. I could walk and 
 sit actually sit down. I could work. I was 
 very faint and ill, but fresh air would soon set 
 that right. All these expenses had swallowed 
 up a large share of my savings, and I had 
 practically to begin life again. But I did not 
 mind that. I went to work joyously. 
 
 "Now judge again of my disappointment. 
 Within two months in February I was 
 seized with a mysterious wasting disease, ac- 
 companied by much pain. I gradually wasted 
 away to mere bones. By degrees this pain 
 increased till it became almost insupportable. 
 I can compare it to nothing but the flame of a 
 small spirit lamp continually burning within 
 me. Sometimes it seemed like a rat always 
 gnaw, gnaw, night and day. I had no sleep. 
 Everything I ate or drank seemed to add fuel 
 to the flame. The local doctors could do 
 nothing, so I went to London again, and in 
 
CONCLUSION. 345 
 
 the course of the two years and more that it 
 lasted I was under five of the leading London 
 physicians. Altogether I had some forty pre- 
 scriptions, and took something like sixty drugs, 
 besides being put on diet. It was not the 
 slightest use, and it became evident that they 
 had no idea what was really the matter with 
 me. The pain went on, burn, burn, burn. If 
 I wrote a volume I could not describe it to 
 you, this terrible scorching pain, night and 
 day. There is nothing in medical books like 
 it, except the pain that follows corrosive sub- 
 limate which burns the tissues. It was at 
 times so maddening that I dreaded to go a 
 few miles alone by rail lest I should throw 
 myself out of the window of the carriage. I 
 worked and wrote all this time, and some of 
 my best work was done in this intense agony. 
 I received letters from New Zealand, from the 
 United States, even from the islands of the 
 Pacific, from people who had read my writings. 
 It seemed so strange that I should read these 
 letters, and yet all the time to be writhing in 
 agony. 
 
 " At last, in April, 1885, nature gave way, 
 
346 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 and I broke down utterly, and could only lie 
 on the sofa in a fainting condition. In a few 
 days I became so helpless and weak that there 
 appeared little chance of my living. Someone 
 suggested that Dr. Kidd should be sent for. 
 He came on Sunday morning, and found me 
 nearly ended. I was fainting during the 
 examination. He discovered that it was 
 ulceration of the intestines. You know 
 how painful an ulcer is anywhere say on 
 your lip now for over two years this ulcera- 
 tion had been burning its way in the intes- 
 tines. 
 
 " He put me on milk diet, malt bread, malt 
 extract, malted food, meat shredded and 
 pounded in a mortar, raw beef, and so on. 
 In forty- eight hours the pain was better. For 
 three weeks I improved and hoped. I think 
 that had the diet been then altered to the 
 ordinary food, I might have made a recovery ; 
 instead of which it was kept up for nine weeks, 
 at the end of which I had lost all the improve- 
 ment, and was so weak that I could but just 
 crawl up and down stairs. I attribute my 
 subsequent exhaustion to the continued use 
 
CONCLUSION. 347 
 
 of milk, which has the effect of destroying 
 nervous energy." 
 
 'Oct, 22, 1886. 
 
 " I have been obliged to set all aside from 
 extreme feebleness. During the last four 
 weeks, indeed, the weakness and emaciation 
 have become very great, so much so that I 
 almost fancy the bones waste. But what I 
 feel most is the loss of fresh air from inability 
 to go out. The last two days have been dry, 
 so that I have been able to get up and down 
 by the house a little. 
 
 " Still, I should have managed somehow to 
 write to you were it not for the great dislike 
 I feel to this begging business. You must not 
 take offence at this, though you may think me 
 very foolish. I keep putting it off and putting 
 it off, till now I suppose I must do it, or stay 
 the winter indoors in helplessness. To-day I 
 have written to obtain the information neces- 
 sary to fill up the form you sent. 
 
 "In September, 1885, my spine seemed 
 suddenly to snap. It happened in ten 
 minutes quite suddenly. It felt as if one 
 
348 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 of the vertebrae had been taken away. It was 
 no doubt a form of paralysis. I had to take 
 to the sofa again, and was confined to the 
 house for over seven months, quite helpless. 
 I could not undress myself. At Christmas, 
 other troubles set in ; the local doctor gave 
 me up. He told my wife that nothing could 
 be done for me, and that the only hope was in 
 my keeping in good spirits. The misery of 
 that dreadful winter will never be forgotten. 
 At length nature seemed to revive a little, and 
 I got downstairs, and soon after Miss Scott 
 came to see me, and you sent me to the sea. 
 On returning from the sea I slowly lost ground 
 again. In the summer I had an attack of 
 vomiting blood of itself enough to alarm 
 most people. By October I was confined 
 indoors again. At last I got down here. 
 
 "Besides all these sufferings I had another 
 trial a loss by death one that I cannot 
 dwell upon ;" it was the death of his 
 youngest child " but it broke me down very 
 much. 
 
 " Of the loss of all my savings I need not 
 say much. But it is difficult to begin the 
 
CONCLUSION. 349 
 
 world afresh" alas I he was just about to 
 end the world " even with good health. 
 
 " With truth I think I may say that there 
 are few, very few, perhaps none, living who 
 have gone through such a series of diseases. 
 There are many dead many who have killed 
 themselves for a tenth part of the pain there 
 are few living. 
 
 " My wearied and exhausted system con- 
 stantly craves rest. My brain is always asking 
 for rest. I never sleep. I have not slept 
 now for five years properly, always waking, 
 with broken bits of sleep, and restlessness, 
 and in the morning I get up more weary 
 than I went to bed. Eest, that is what I 
 need. You thought naturally that it was 
 work I needed ; but I have been at work, 
 and next time I will tell you all of it. It is 
 not work, it is rest for the brain and the 
 nervous system. I have always had a sus- 
 picion that it was the ceaseless work that 
 caused me to go wrong at first. 
 
 " It has taken me a long time to write this 
 letter ; it will take you but a few minutes to 
 read it. Had you not sent me to the sea in 
 
350 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 the spring I do not think that I should have 
 been alive to write it." 
 
 Was there ever a more miserable tale of 
 slow torture ? Parts of it the parts relating 
 to his operations I have omitted. Enough 
 remains. Picture to yourself this tall, gaunt 
 man reduced to a skeleton, not able to use his 
 pen for more than a few minutes at a time, 
 his spine broken down, spitting blood, lying 
 back on the sofa, his mind full of splendid 
 thoughts which he cannot put upon paper, 
 dictating sometimes when he was strong 
 enough, resolved on making money so as to 
 save himself the " disgrace " of applying to 
 the Literary Fund, full of pain by day and 
 night, growing daily weaker, but never losing 
 heart or hope is there in the whole calamitous 
 history of authors a picture more full of sad- 
 ness and of pity than this ? 
 
 He writes again on January 10, 1887. He 
 is no worse. The letter is about money matters 
 that is to say, he has no money. 
 
 On February 2 he writes again. He has 
 been able to dictate a little. 
 
CONCLUSION. 351 
 
 " I hope to be able to do more work after a 
 time ; when the weather becomes sufficiently 
 warm for me to sit out of doors. With me 
 the power to write is almost entirely dependent 
 upon being out of doors. Confined indoors, I 
 have nothing to write, and I cannot express 
 my ideas if they do occur to me so boldly. 
 You have no idea what a difference it makes. 
 A little air and movement seem to brighten 
 up the mind and give it play. I am in hope, 
 too, that as the warmth comes on the sea will 
 help me more. Up to the present the winter 
 has gone well." 
 
 The last letter to Mr. Scott was written on 
 March 23. He is pleased and surprised to 
 hear that the fund raised for him amounts to 
 so much. Perhaps it will enable him to go 
 abroad presently. Meantime, he has had a 
 relapse an attack of haemorrhage " and then 
 so feeble that I have not been able to dictate. 
 This loss of time worries me more than I can 
 tell you." 
 
 And so with thanks to this good friend, 
 Kichard Jefferies lays down his pen for the 
 
352 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 last time. The busy hand which has written so 
 much will write no more. He can no longer 
 dictate. His very feebleness will soon be past, 
 and he will be at rest, whether in the uncon- 
 scious clay- cold rest of the dark grave, or in that 
 better life of the Fuller Soul of which he had 
 so great and glorious a Vision who knoweth ? 
 
 You have read the life of Eichard Jefferies. 
 You have seen how the country lad, ill- 
 educated, slenderly provided with books or 
 friends, formed in early life a resolution to 
 succeed in letters. The resolution was formed 
 when as yet he had no knowledge or thought 
 of style. You have read how he fought long 
 years against ill-success, against the ridicule 
 and coldness of his friends, but still kept up 
 his courage ; how he did succeed at length, yet 
 not at all in the way that at first he hoped. 
 That way would have taken him along the 
 paths trodden by those who write romances 
 and stories to beguile their brothers and 
 sisters, and to cheat them into forgetfulness 
 of their disappointments and anxieties ; that 
 way, by which he wished to go, would have 
 
CONCLUSION. 353 
 
 led him quickly to the ease of fortune which 
 at all times he ardently desired. It is foolish, 
 and worse than foolish, to pretend that any 
 man even the best of men, even the most 
 philosophic of men desires poverty, which 
 is dependence ; therefore one does not blame 
 this man for desiring fortune. The way, 
 however, by which he succeeded was a far 
 higher and a nobler way, though he understood 
 not that at first. 
 
 You have seen, also, not only that his early 
 life was that of an obscure reporter for a little 
 country paper, but that his first ambition was 
 altogether for the making of money rather 
 than for the production of good work. The 
 love of good work, as such, grew gradually in 
 him. At first it is not apparent at all. At 
 first we have nothing but a commonplace lad, 
 poor, and therefore eager to make money, and 
 fondly thinking that it can be made by writing 
 worthless and commonplace stories. Nothing 
 in his early life has been concealed. You 
 have read his very words, where they could 
 be recovered. They are in no way remarkable 
 words; they are generally, in fact, common- 
 
 23 
 
354 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 place. Nothing, except a steady and consistent 
 belief in his own future, the nature of which 
 he does not even suspect, reveals the power 
 latent in his mind. There is nothing at all 
 in these early utterances to show the depths 
 of poetry in his soul. Nay, I think there were 
 none of these depths in him at first. So long 
 as he worked among men, and contemplated 
 their ways, he felt no touch of poetry, he saw 
 no gleam of light. Mankind seemed to him 
 sordid and creeping ; either oppressor or op- 
 pressed. Away from men, upon the breezy 
 down and among the woods, he is filled with 
 thoughts which, at first, vanish like the photo- 
 graphs of scenery upon the eye. Presently 
 he finds out the way to fix those photographs. 
 Then he is transformed, but not suddenly ; 
 no, not suddenly. When he discovers the 
 Gamekeeper at Home, he begins to be articu- 
 late; with every page that follows he becomes 
 more articulate. At first he draws a faithful 
 picture of the cottager, the farmer, the game- 
 keeper, the poacher; the pictures are set in 
 appropriate scenery; by degrees the figures 
 vanish and the setting remains. But it is 
 
CONCLUSION. 355 
 
 no longer the same ; it is now infused with the 
 very soul of the painter. The woods speak to 
 us, through him ; the very flowers speak and 
 touch our hearts, through him. The last seven 
 years of his life were full, indeed, of pain and 
 bodily torture ; but they were glorified and 
 hallowed by the work which he was enabled to 
 do. Nay, they even glorify and hallow all 
 the life that went before. We no longer see 
 the commonplace young country reporter who 
 tries to write commonplace and impossible 
 stories we watch the future poet of the 
 " Pageant of Summer " whose early struggles 
 we witness while he is seeking to find himself. 
 Presently he speaks. HE HAS FOUND HIMSELF ; 
 he has obtained the prayer of his heart ; he 
 has been blessed with the FULLER SOUL. 
 
 At the last, during the long communings 
 of the night when he lay sleepless, happy to 
 be free, if only for a few moments, from pain, 
 the simple old faith came back to him. He 
 had arrived long before, as we have seen, at 
 the grand discovery : that the perfect soul 
 wants the perfect body, and that the perfect 
 
 232 
 
356 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 body must be inhabited by the perfect soul. 
 To this conclusion , you have seen, he was led 
 by Nature herself. Now he beheld clearly 
 perhaps more clearly than ever the way from 
 this imperfect and fragmentary life to a fuller, 
 happier life beyond the grave. He had no 
 need of priest ; he wanted no other assurance 
 than the voice and words of Him who swept 
 away all priests. The man who wrote the 
 " Story of My Heart ;" the man who was 
 filled to overflowing with the beauty and order 
 of God's handiwork ; the man who felt so 
 deeply the shortness, and imperfections, and 
 disappointments of life that he was fain to 
 cry aloud that all happens by chance ; the man 
 who had the vision of the Fuller Soul, died 
 listening with faith and love to the words con- 
 tained in the Old Book. 
 
 What follows is written by his friend, Mr. 
 J. W. North, who was with him during the 
 last days. 
 
 " It was in the early summer, two or three 
 months before his death, that I saw JefFeries for 
 
CONCLUSION. 357 
 
 the last time alive. He had then been living at 
 Goring for some short time, and this was my 
 first visit to him there. I was pleased to find 
 that his house was far pleasanter than the 
 dreary and bleak cottage which he had rented 
 at Crowborough. It had a view of the 
 sea, a warm southern exposure, and a good 
 and interesting garden : in one corner a quaint 
 little arbour, with a pole and vane, and near 
 the centre a genuine old-fashioned draw-well. 
 Poor fellow ! Painfully, with short breath- 
 ing, and supported on one side by Mrs. 
 Jefferies and on the other by myself, he 
 walked round this enclosure, noticing and 
 drawing our attention to all kinds of queer 
 little natural objects and facts. Between the 
 well and the arbour was a heap of rough, ^^ 
 loose stones, overgrown by various creeping W A* 
 flowers. This was the home of a common 
 snake, discovered there by Harold, and poor 
 Jefferies stood, supported by us, a yard or so 
 away and peered into every little cranny and 
 under every leaf with eyes well used to such a 
 search until some tiny gleam, some minute 
 cold glint of light, betrayed the snake. Weak- 
 
358 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 ness and pain seemed forgotten for the moment 
 alas ! only for the moment. Uneasily he 
 sat in the little arbour telling me how his 
 disease seemed still to puzzle the doctors ; how 
 he felt well able in mind to work, plenty of 
 mental energy, but so weak, so fearfully weak, 
 that he could no longer write with his own 
 hand ; that his wife was patient and good to 
 help him. He had nobody to come and talk 
 with him of the world of literature and art. 
 Why couldn't I come and settle by ? There 
 was plenty to paint. Though Goring itself 
 was one of the ugliest places in the world, 
 there was Arundel, and its noble park, and 
 river, and castle close by. I must go and see 
 it the very next day, and see whether I could 
 not work there, and come back every day and 
 cheer him. I was the best doctor, after all/ 
 
 " Poor fellow ! I did not then know or 
 believe that he was so utterly without sympa- 
 thetic society except his devoted wife. It was 
 so. I am one of the dullest companions in the 
 world; but I had sympathy with his work, 
 and knowledge, too, of his subjects. Well, 
 nothing would do but that I must go to 
 
CONCLUSION. 359 
 
 Arundel the next day, and Mrs. Jefferies 
 must show me the town. 'He would do 
 well enough for one day. A good neighbour 
 would come in, and with little Phyllis and 
 the maid he would be safe/ 
 
 " Therefore we went to Arundel (a short 
 journey by train), and on coming back found 
 him standing against the door-post to welcome 
 us. 
 
 " I have seldom been more touched than by 
 my experience of that evening, finding, amongst 
 other things, that he had partly planned and 
 insisted on this Arundel trip to get us away 
 so that he might, unrebuked, spend some of 
 his latest hard earnings in a pint of ' Perrier 
 Jouet ' for my supper. 
 
 " Do you know Goring churchyard ? It is 
 one of those dreary, over- crowded, dark spots 
 where the once-gravelled paths are green with 
 slimy moss, and it was a horror to poor 
 Jefferies. More than once he repeated the 
 hope that he might not be laid there, and he 
 chose the place where his widow at last left 
 him amongst the brighter grass and flowers 
 at Broadwater. 
 
360 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 " He died at Goring at half -past two on 
 Sunday morning, August 14, 1887. His soul 
 was released from a body wasted to a skeleton 
 by six long weary years of illness. For nearly 
 two years he had been too weak to write, and 
 all his delightful work, during that period, 
 was written by his wife from his dictation. 
 Who can picture the torture of these long 
 years to him, denied as he was the strength 
 to walk so much as one hundred yards in the 
 world he loved so well ? What hero like this, 
 fighting with Death face to face so long, fearing 
 and knowing, alas ! too well, that no struggles 
 could avail, and, worse than all, that his dear 
 ones would be left friendless and penniless. 
 Thus died a man whose name will be first, 
 perhaps for ever, in his own special work." 
 
 " Monday, Aug., 15. 
 
 " . . . I went yesterday, expecting once 
 more to speak with him. I found him lying 
 dead, twelve hours dead. I saw him with 
 Mrs. JefFeries and their little Phyllis. A 
 pitiful sight to see them kiss the poor cold 
 face ! God help them ! All through his last 
 
CONCLUSION. 361 
 
 days his wife was with him day and night ; a 
 young country girl, who behaved nobly all 
 through, was her only help. . . . His long, 
 long illness of six years (four years before at 
 Eltham he looked near death) this long, weari- 
 some time had almost persuaded many who 
 knew him not intimately that his illness was 
 partly imaginary. He proved it otherwise. 
 A soldier who in health, high spirits, and 
 excitement, rides to what appears certain 
 death is called a hero : glory and honours are 
 heaped upon him ; but what is that compared 
 with years of fighting without cessation, and 
 the absolute certainty of defeat always present 
 to the mind ? I asked Mrs. JefFeries if he had 
 made a will. She said : ' No ; surely it would 
 have been useless, we have nothing. A woman 
 singly, strong as I am, could rough it ; but if 
 something can be done for the children ' 
 Something shall be done. I had to call at my 
 framemaker's to put off an appointment. I 
 told him roughly what had happened to me 
 yesterday. He had never heard of JefFeries, 
 and knew nothing of his work ; but he said, 
 1 1 shall be glad if anything can be done if 
 
362 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 you will put us down for two guineas.' All 
 those who are country born and bred, and 
 have a heart inside their body, have always 
 recognised and admired poor Jefferies' writiDg. 
 Shall I say what I think and know, that in 
 all our literature until now he has never had 
 a rival, and that it is most likely he will 
 never be equalled ? In a hundred years he 
 will be only more truly appreciated than at 
 present. The number of men who combine 
 the love and the knowledge of literary work 
 is more limited, perhaps, in this age than in 
 any previous one. Few people, again, of in- 
 telligence and refinement of heart and mind 
 live completely in the country, and much, very 
 much of his work, will be always unintelligible 
 to those who cannot exist in a country-house 
 unless it is full of frequently-changing guests. 
 I have been trying by a different art for thirty 
 years equal to almost the whole of his life 
 on earth to convey an idea to others of some 
 such subjects, and I feel with shame that in 
 the work of half a year I do not get so near 
 the heart and truth of Nature as he in one 
 
CONCLUSION. 363 
 
 paragraph. With strict charge that it should 
 not leave my hands, Mrs. Jefferies lent me the 
 proof of an article which appeared in Long- 
 mans Magazine in spring, 1886. It was the 
 very last copy he wrote with his own hand. 
 Since then his wife wrote from his dictation. 
 Head this quotation from it, which touched 
 me greatly yesterday : 
 
 " ' I wonder to myself how they can all get 
 on without me ; how they manage, bird and 
 flower, without ME, to keep the calendar for 
 them. For I noted it so carefully and lovingly 
 day by day.' 
 
 " And this : 
 
 " ( They go on without me, orchis-flower and 
 cowslip. I cannot number them all. I hear, 
 as it were, the patter of their feet flower and 
 buds, and the beautiful clouds that go over, 
 with the sweet rush of rain and burst of sun 
 glory among the leafy trees. They go on, 
 and I am no more than the least of the empty 
 shells that strew the sward of the hill.' 
 
364 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 " One thing I saw in one of his last note- 
 books : Three great giants are against me 
 disease, despair, and poverty.' 
 
 " One thing more. His wife said that their 
 time had been for long spent in prayer together 
 and reading St. Luke. 
 
 "Almost his last intelligible words were, 
 ' Yes, yes ; that is so. Help, Lord, for Jesus' 
 sake. Darling, good-bye. God bless you and 
 the children, and save you all from such great 
 pain.' 
 
 " He was buried at Broad water, by Worthing, 
 Sussex. 
 
 " In the gentlest, sweet, soft, sunny rain he 
 was borne along the path to his grave in the 
 grass, and when the last part of the service for 
 the dead had been read, well and solemnly, 
 and we turned away leaving him for ever on 
 earth, the large tears from heaven fell thick 
 and fast, and over and over again came to me 
 the saying, ' Happy are the dead that the rain 
 rains on.' The modest home-made wreath of 
 wild wood-clematis and myrtle my wife had 
 
CONCLUSION. 365 
 
 sent pleased me by happy symbolism for as 
 the myrtle is, so will his memory be, ' for ever 
 green. 7 
 
 " Mourn, little harebells, o'er the lea ; 
 Ye stately foxgloves fair to see ; 
 Ye woodbines hanging bonnilie 
 
 In scented bowers ; 
 Ye roses on your thorny tree, 
 
 The first o' flowers. 
 
 " Mourn, Spring, thou darling of the year ; 
 Ilk cowslip-cup shall kep a tear ; 
 Thou Summer, while each corny spear 
 
 Shoots up its head, 
 Thy gay, green, flowery tresses shear 
 For him that's dead." 
 
 " J. W. N." 
 
APPENDIX I. 
 
 LIST OF JEFFERIES' WORKS. 
 
 (The Dates of the First Editions only are given.) 
 
 REPOBTING, EDITING AND AUTHORSHIP. John Snow 
 and Co., Ivy Lane; Alfred Bull, Victoria Street, 
 Swindon, 1873. Handbook. 
 
 A MEMOIR OF THE GODDARDS OF NORTH WILTS. Pub- 
 lished by the author, Coate, Swindon, 1873. 
 
 JACK BRASS, EMPEROR OF ENGLAND. T. Pettit, and 
 Co., 23, Frith Street, Soho, 1873. Pamphlet. 
 
 THE SCARLET SHAWL. Tinsley Bros., 1874. 1 vol. 
 novel. 
 
 RESTLESS HUMAN HEARTS. Tinsley Bros., 1875. 
 3 vols. 
 
 SUEZ-CIDE. John Snow and Co., Ivy Lane, 1876. 
 Pamphlet. 
 
 WORLD'S END. Tinsley Bros., 1877. 3 vols. 
 
 GAME-KEEPER AT HOME. Smith and Elder, 1878. 
 1vol. 
 
 AMATEUR POACHER. Smith and Elder, 1881. 
 
 WILD LIFE IN A SOUTHERN COUNTY. Smith and 
 Elder, 1879. 1 vol. 
 
APPENDIX I. 367 
 
 GREENE FERNE FARM. Smith and Elder, 1880. 
 
 1vol. 
 HODGE AND HIS MASTERS. Smith and Elder, 1880. 
 
 2 vols. 
 BOUND ABOUT A GREAT ESTATE. Smith and Elder, 
 
 1880. 1 vol. 
 
 WOOD MAGIC. Cassell, 1881. 1 vol. 
 BEVIS. Sampson Low and Co., 1882. 3 vols. 
 NATURE NEAR LONDON. Chatto and Windus, 1883. 
 
 1vol. 
 
 STORY OP MY HEART. Longmans, 1883. 1 vol. 
 THE DEWY MORN. Chapman and Hall, 1884. 2 vol. 
 
 novel. 
 LIFE OP THE FIELDS. Chatto and Windus, 1884. 
 
 1vol. 
 
 BED-DEER. Longmans, 1884. 1 vol. 
 AFTER LONDON. Cassell, 1885. 1 vol. 
 THE OPEN AIR. Chatto and Windus, 1885. 1 vol. 
 AMARYLLIS AT THE FAIR. Sampson Low and Co., 1887. 
 
 1vol. 
 
APPENDIX II. 
 
 LIST OF PAPEES STILL UNPUBLISHED. 
 
 MY OLD VILLAGE. Longman's Magazine, October, 
 
 1887. 
 
 HOURS OF SPRING-. Longman's Magazine, 1885. 
 APRIL GOSSIP. St. James's Gazette. 
 SOME APRIL SWEETS. Pall Mall Gazette. 
 THE MAKERS OP SUMMER. Pall Mall Gazette. 
 WALKS IN THE WHEATFIELDS. English Illustrated 
 
 Magazine. 
 SOMERSET IN JUNE. English Illustrated Magazine t 
 
 October, 1887. 
 
 BIRDS' NESTS. St. James's Gazette. 
 FIELD SPORTS IN ART. Art Journal. 
 NATURE IN THE LOUVRE. Magazine of Art. 
 NATURE AND BOOKS. Fortnightly Bevieic. 
 BUCKHURST PARK. Standard. 
 COUNTRY PLACES. Manchester Guardian. 
 THE JULY GRASS. Pall Mall Gazette. 
 THE COUNTRY-SIDE. Manchester Guardian. 
 WINDS OF HEAVEN. Chambers' Journal. 
 THE COUNTRY SUNDAY. Longman's Magazine, June, 
 
 1887. 
 SWALLOW-TIME. Standard. 
 
APPENDIX II. 369 
 
 HOUSE-MARTINS. Standard. 
 
 AMONG THE NUTS. Standard. 
 
 LOCALITY AND NATURE. Pall Mall. Gazette. 
 
 FIELD WORDS AND WATS. Chambers' Journal. 
 
 COTTAGE IDEAS. Chambers' Journal. 
 
 STEAM ON COUNTRY EOADS. Standard. 
 
 THE TIME OF YEAR. Pall Mall Gazette. 
 
 MIXED DAYS OF MAY AND DECEMBER. Pall Mall 
 
 Gazette. 
 
 JUST BEFORE WINTER. Chambers' Journal. 
 MY CHAFFINCH. Pall Mall Gazette. 
 
 24 
 
APPENDIX III. 
 
 LETTER TO THE TIMES, NOVEMBER, 1872. 
 
 SIB, The Wiltshire agricultural labourer is not so 
 highly paid as those of Northumberland, nor so low as 
 those of Dorset ; but in the amount of his wages, as 
 in intelligence and general position, he may fairly be 
 taken as an average specimen of his class throughout 
 a large portion of the kingdom. 
 
 As a man, he is usually strongly built, broad- 
 shouldered, and massive in frame, but his appearance 
 is spoilt by the clumsiness of his walk and the want of 
 grace in his movements. Though quite as large in 
 muscle, it is very doubtful if he possesses the strength 
 of the seamen who may be seen lounging about the 
 ports. There is a want of firmness, a certain dis- 
 jointed style, about his limbs, and the muscles them- 
 selves have not the hardness and tension of the sailor's. 
 The labourer's muscle is that of a cart-horse, his 
 motions lumbering and slow. His style of walk is 
 caused by following the plough in early childhood, 
 when the weak limbs find it a hard labour to pull the 
 heavy-nailed boots from the thick clay soil. Ever 
 afterwards he walks as if it were an exertion to lift 
 his legs. His food may, perhaps, have something to 
 
APPENDIX III. 371 
 
 do with the deadened slowness which seems to per- 
 vade everything he does there seems a lack of 
 vitality about him. It consists chiefly of bread and 
 cheese, with bacon twice or thrice a week, varied with 
 onions, and if he be a milker (on some farms) with a 
 good " tuck-out " at his employer's expense on Sun- 
 days. On ordinary days he dines at the fashionable 
 hour of six or seven in the evening that is, about 
 that time his cottage scents the road with a powerful 
 odour of boiled cabbage, of which he eats an immense 
 quantity. Vegetables are his luxuries, and a large 
 garden, therefore, is the greatest blessing he can have. 
 He eats huge onions raw ; he has no idea of flavour- 
 ing his food with them, nor of making those savoury 
 and inviting messes or vegetable soups at which the 
 French peasantry are so clever. In Picardy I have 
 often dined in a peasant's cottage, and thoroughly en- 
 joyed the excellent soup he puts upon the table for his 
 ordinary meal. To dine in an English labourer's 
 cottage would be impossible. His bread is generally 
 good, certainly ; but his bacon is the cheapest he can 
 buy at small second-class shops oily, soft, wretched 
 stuff; his vegetables are cooked in detestable style, 
 and eaten saturated with the pot-liquor. Pot-liquor 
 is a favourite soup. I have known cottagers actually 
 apply at farmers' kitchens, not only for the pot-liquor 
 in which meat has been soddened, but for the water in 
 which potatoes have been boiled potato-liquor and 
 sup it up with avidity. And this not in times of 
 dearth or scarcity, but rather as a relish. They never 
 buy anything but bacon ; never butcher's meat. 
 Philanthropic ladies, to my knowledge, have demon- 
 strated over and over again even to their limited capa- 
 
 242 
 
372 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 cities that certain parts of butchers' meat can be 
 bought just as cheap, and will make more savoury 
 and nutritive food ; and even now, with the present 
 high price of meat, a certain portion would be advan- 
 tageous. In vain ; the labourers obstinately adhere 
 to the pig, and the pig only. When, however, an op- 
 portunity does occur, the amount of food they will eat 
 is something astonishing. Once a year, at the village 
 club dinner, they gormandize to repletion. In one in- 
 stance I knew of a man eating a plate of roast beef 
 (and the slices are cut enormously thick at these 
 dinners), a plate of boiled beef, then another of boiled 
 mutton, and then a fourth of roast mutton, and a fifth 
 of ham. He said he could not do much to the bread 
 and cheese ; but didn't he go into the pudding ! I 
 have even heard of men stuffing to the fullest extent 
 of their powers, and then retiring from the table to 
 take an emetic of mustard and return to a second gorg- 
 ing. There is scarcely any limit to their power of ab- 
 sorbing beer. I have known reapers and mowers 
 make it their boast that they could lie on their backs 
 and never take the wooden bottle (in the shape of a 
 small barrel) from their lips till they had drunk a 
 gallon, and from the feats I have seen I verily believe 
 it a fact. The beer they get is usually poor and thin, 
 though sometimes in harvest the farmers bring out a 
 taste of strong liquor, but not till the work is nearly 
 over ; for from this very practice of drinking enormous 
 quantities of small beer the labourer cannot drink 
 more than a very limited amount of good liquor with- 
 out getting tipsy. This is why he so speedily gets in- 
 ebriated at the alehouse. While mowing and reaping 
 many of them lay in a small cask. 
 
APPENDIX III. 373 
 
 They are much better clothed now than formerly. 
 Corduroy trousers and slops are the usual style. 
 Smock-frocks are going out of use, except for milkers 
 and f aggers. Almost every labourer has his Sunday 
 suit, very often really good clothes, sometimes glossy 
 black, with the regulation " chimney-pot." His un- 
 fortunate walk betrays him, dress how he will. Since 
 labour has become so expensive it has become a com- 
 mon remark among the farmers that the labourer will 
 go to church in broadcloth and the masters in smock- 
 frocks. The labourer never wears gloves that has to 
 come with the march of the times ; but he is particu- 
 larly choice over his necktie. The women must dress 
 in the fashion. A very respectable draper in an agri- 
 cultural district was complaining to me the other day 
 that the poorest class of women would have everything 
 in the fashionable style, let it change as often as it 
 would. In former times, if he laid in a stock of goods 
 suited to tradesmen, and farmers' wives and daughters, 
 if the fashion changed, or they got out of date, he 
 could dispose of them easily to the servants. Now no 
 such thing. The quality did not matter so much, but 
 the style must be the style of the day no sale for 
 remnants. The poorest girl, who had not got two 
 yards of flannel on her back, must have the same style 
 of dress as the squire's daughter Dolly Vardens, 
 chignons, and parasols for ladies who can work all 
 day reaping in the broiling sun of August ! Gloves, 
 kid, for hands that milk the cows ! 
 
 The cottages now are infinitely better than they 
 were. There is scarcely room for further improvement 
 in the cottages now erected upon estates. They have 
 three bedrooms, and every appliance and comfort com- 
 
374 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 patible with their necessarily small size. It is only 
 the cottages erected by the labourers themselves on 
 waste plots of ground which are open to objection. 
 Those he builds himself are indeed, as a rule, miser- 
 able huts, disgraceful to a Christian country. I have 
 an instance before me at this moment where a man 
 built a cottage with two rooms and no staircase or 
 upper apartments, and in those two rooms eight per- 
 sons lived and slept himself and wife, grown-up 
 daughters, and children. There was not a scrap of 
 garden attached, not enough to grow half a dozen 
 onions. The refuse and sewage was flung into the 
 road, or filtered down a ditch into the brook which 
 supplied that part of the village with water. In 
 another case at one time there was a cottage in which 
 twelve persons lived. This had upper apartments, but 
 so low was the ceiling that a tall man could stand on 
 the floor, with his head right through the opening for 
 the staircase, and see along the upper floor under the 
 beds ! These squatters are the curse of the commu- 
 nity. It is among them that fever and kindred infec- 
 tious diseases break out ; it is among them that 
 wretched couples are seen bent double with rheuma- 
 tism and affections of the joints caused by damp. 
 They have often been known to remain so long, 
 generation after generation, in these wretched hovels 
 that at last the lord of the manor having neglected to 
 claim quit-rent, they can defy him, and claim them as 
 their own property, and there they stick, eyesores 
 and blots, the fungi of the land. The cottages erected 
 by farmers or by landlords are now, one and all, fit 
 and proper habitations for human beings ; and I verily 
 believe it would be impossible throughout the length 
 
APPENDIX III. 375 
 
 and breadth of Wiltshire to find a single bad cottage 
 on any large estate, so well and so thoroughly have 
 the landed proprietors done their work. On all farms 
 gardens are attached to the cottages, in many in- 
 stances very large, and always sufficient to produce 
 enough vegetables for the resident. In villages the 
 allotment system has been greatly extended of late 
 years, and has been found most beneficial, both to 
 owners and tenants. As a rule the allotments are let 
 at a rate which may be taken as 4 per annum a 
 sum which pays the landlord very well, and enables 
 the labourer to remunerate himself. In one village 
 which came under my observation the clergyman of 
 the parish has turned a portion of his glebe-land into 
 allotments a most excellent and noble example, 
 which cannot be too widely followed or too much ex- 
 tolled. He is thus enabled to benefit almost every 
 one of his poor parishioners, and yet without destroy- 
 ing that sense of independence which is the great 
 characteristic of a true Englishman. He has issued a 
 book of rules and conditions under which these allot- 
 ments are held, and he thus places a strong check 
 upon drunkenness and dissolute habits, indulgence in 
 which is a sure way to lose the portions of ground. 
 There is scarcely an end to the benefits of the allot- 
 ment system. In villages there cannot be extensive 
 gardens, and the allotments supply their place. The 
 extra produce above that which supplies the table and 
 pays the rent is easily disposed of in the next town, 
 and places many additional comforts in the labourer's 
 reach. The refuse goes to help support and fatten the 
 labourer's pig, which brings him in profit enough to 
 pay the rent of his cottage, and the pig, in turn, 
 
376 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 manures the allotment. Some towns have large com- 
 mon lands, held under certain conditions ; such are 
 Malmesbury, with 500 acres, and Tetbury (the common 
 land of which extends two miles) : both these being 
 arable, etc. These are not exactly in the use of 
 labourers, but they are in the hands of a class to 
 which the labourer often rises. Many labourers have 
 fruit trees in their gardens which, in some seasons, 
 prove very profitable. In the present year, to my 
 knowledge, a labourer sold 4 worth of apples ; and 
 another made 3 10s. of the produce of one pear-tree, 
 pears being scarce. 
 
 To come at last to the difficult question of wages. 
 In Wiltshire there has been no extended strike, and 
 very few meetings upon the subject, for the simple 
 reason that the agitators can gain no hold upon a 
 county where, as a mass, the labourers are well paid. 
 The common day-labourer receives 10s., 11s., and 12s. 
 a week, according to the state of supply and demand for 
 labour in various districts, and, if he milks, Is. more, 
 making 13s. a week, now common wages. These figures 
 are rather below the mark; I could give instances of much 
 higher pay. To give a good idea of the wages paid, I 
 will take the case of a hill farmer (arable, Marlborough 
 Downs), who paid this last summer during harvest 
 18s. per week per man. His reapers often earned 
 10s. a day ; enough to pay their year's rent in a week. 
 These men lived in cottages on the farm, with three 
 bedrooms each, and some larger, with every modern 
 appliance, each having a garden of a quarter of an 
 acre attached and close at hand, for which cottage and 
 garden they paid Is. per week rent. The whole of 
 these cottages were insured by the farmer himself, 
 
APPENDIX III. 377 
 
 their furniture, etc., in one lump, and the insurance 
 policy cost him, as nearly as possible, Is. 3d. per 
 cottage per year. For this he deducted Is. per year 
 each from their wages. None of the men would have 
 insured unless he had insisted upon doing it for them. 
 These men had from six to eight quarts of beer per 
 man (over and above their 18s. per week) during 
 harvest every day. In spring and autumn their wages 
 are much increased by forced work, hoeing, etc. In 
 winter the farmer draws their coal for them in his 
 waggons, a distance of eight miles from the nearest 
 wharf, enabling them to get it at cost price. This is 
 no slight advantage, for, at the present high price of 
 coal, it is sold, delivered in the villages, at 2s. per 
 cwt. Many who cannot afford it in the week buy a 
 quarter of a cwt. on Saturday night to cook their 
 Sunday's dinner with, for 6d. This is at the rate of 
 2 per ton. Another gentleman, a large steam culti- 
 vator in the Vale, whose name is often before the 
 public, informs me that his books show that he paid 
 100 in one year in cash to one cottage for labour, 
 showing the advantage the labourer possesses over the 
 mechanic, since his wife and child can add to his in- 
 come. Many farmers pay 50 and 60 a year for beer 
 drunk by their labourers a serious addition to their 
 wages. The railway companies and others who em- 
 ploy mechanics do not allow them any beer. The 
 allowance of a good cottage and a quarter of an acre of 
 garden for Is. per week is not singular. Many who 
 were at the Autumn Manoeuvres of the present year 
 may remember having a handsome row of houses, 
 rather than cottages, pointed out to them as inhabited 
 by labourers at Is. per week. In the immediate 
 
378 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 neighbourhood of large manufacturing towns Is. 6d. a 
 week is sometimes paid ; but then these cottages 
 would in such positions readily let to mechanics for 
 3s., 4s., and even 5s. per week. There was a great 
 outcry when the Duke of Marlborough issued an order 
 that the cottages on his estate should in future only be 
 let to such men as worked upon the farms where those 
 cottages are situated. In reality this was the very 
 greatest blessing the Duke could have conferred upon 
 the agricultural labourer ; for it insured him a good 
 cottage at a nearly nominal rent and close to his work; 
 whereas in many instances previously the cottages on 
 the farms had been let at a high rate to the mechanics, 
 and the labourer had to walk miles before he got to 
 his labour. Cottages are not erected by landowners or 
 by farmers as paying speculations. It is well known 
 that the condition of things prevents the agricultural 
 labourer from being able to pay a sufficient rent to be 
 a fair percentage upon the sum expended. In one in- 
 stance a landlord has built some cottages for his 
 tenant, the tenant paying a certain amount of interest 
 on the sum invested by the landlord. Now, although 
 this is a matter of arrangement, and not of speculation 
 that is, although the interest paid by the tenant is a 
 low percentage upon the money laid out, yet the rent 
 paid by the labourers inhabiting these cottages to the 
 tenant does not reimburse him what he pays his land- 
 lord as interest not by a considerable margin. But 
 then he has the advantage of his labourers close to his 
 work, always ready at hand. 
 
 Over and above the actual cash wages of the 
 labourer, which are now very good, must be reckoned 
 his cottage and garden, and often a small orchard, at a 
 
APPENDIX III. 379 
 
 nominal rent, his beer at his master's expense, piece- 
 work, gleaning after harvest, etc., which alter his real 
 position very materially. In Gloucestershire, on the 
 Cotswolds, the best -paid labourers are the shepherds, 
 for in that great sheep country much trust is reposed 
 in them. At the annual auctions of shearlings which 
 are held upon the low farms a purse is made for the 
 shepherd of the flock, into which everyone who 
 attends is expected to drop a shilling, often producing 
 5. The shepherds on the Wiltshire downs are also 
 well paid, especially in lambing time, when the 
 greatest watchfulness and care are required. It has 
 been stated that the labourer has no chance of rising 
 from his position. This is sheer cant. He has very 
 good opportunities of rising, and often does rise, to my 
 knowledge. At this present moment I could mention 
 a person who has risen from a position scarcely equal 
 to that of a labourer, not only to have a farm himself, 
 but to place his sons in farms. Another has just 
 entered on a farm ; and several more are on the high- 
 road to that desirable consummation. If a labourer 
 possesses any amount of intelligence he becomes head 
 carter or head fagger, as the case may be ; and from 
 that to be assistant or underbailiff, and finally bailiff. 
 As a bailiff he has every opportunity to learn the 
 working of a farm, and is often placed in entire charge 
 of a farm at a distance from his employer's residence. 
 In time he establishes a reputation as a practical man, 
 and being in receipt of good wages, with very little ex- 
 penditure, saves some money. He has now little 
 difficulty in obtaining the promise of a farm, and with 
 this can readily take up money. With average care 
 he is a made man. Others rise from petty trading, 
 
380 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 petty dealing with pigs and calves, till they save suffi- 
 cient to rent a small farm, and make that the basis of 
 larger dealing operations. I question very much 
 whether a clerk in a firm would not find it much more 
 difficult, as requiring larger capital, to raise himself to 
 a level with his employer than an agricultural 
 labourer does to the level of a farmer. 
 
 Many labourers now wander far and wide as 
 navvies, etc., and perhaps when these return home, as 
 most of them do, to agricultural labour, they are the 
 most useful and intelligent of their class, from a readi- 
 ness they possess to turn their hand to anything. I 
 know one at this moment who makes a large addition 
 to his ordinary wages by brewing for the small inns, 
 and very good liquor he brews, too. They pick up a 
 large amount of practical knowledge. 
 
 The agricultural women are certainly not handsome ; 
 I know no peasantry so entirely uninviting. -Occa- 
 sionally there is a girl whose nut-brown complexion 
 and sloe-black eyes are pretty, but their features are 
 very rarely good, and they get plain quickly, so 
 soon as the first flush of youth is past. Many have 
 really good hair in abundance, glossy and rich, per- 
 haps from its exposure to the fresh air. But on Sun- 
 days they plaster it with strong-smelling pomade and 
 hair-oil, which scents the air for yards most un- 
 pleasantly. As a rule, it may safely be laid down that 
 the agricultural women are moral, far more so than 
 those of the town. Eough and rude jokes and 
 language are, indeed, too common ; but that is all. 
 No evil comes of it. The fairs are the chief cause of 
 immorality. Many an honest, hard-working servant- 
 girl owes her ruin to these fatal mops and fairs, when 
 
APPENDIX III. 381 
 
 liquor to which she is unaccustomed overcomes her. 
 Yet it seems cruel to take from them the one day or 
 two of the year on which they can enjoy themselves 
 fairly in their own fashion. The spread of friendly 
 societies, patronized by the gentry and clergy, with 
 their annual festivities, is a remedy which is gradu- 
 ally supplying them with safer, and yet congenial, 
 amusement. In what may be termed lesser morals I 
 cannot accord either them or the men the same praise. 
 They are too ungrateful for the many great benefits 
 which are bountifully supplied them the brandy, the 
 soup, and fresh meat readily extended without stint 
 from the farmer's home in sickness to the cottage are 
 too quickly forgotten. They who were most benefited 
 are often the first to most loudly complain and to 
 backbite. Never once in all my observation have I 
 heard a labouring man or woman make a grateful re- 
 mark ; and yet I can confidently say that there is no 
 class of persons in England who receive so many 
 attentions and benefits from their superiors as the 
 agricultural labourers. Stories are rife of their even 
 refusing to work at disastrous fires because beer was 
 not immediately forthcoming. I trust this is not true ; 
 but it is too much in character. No term is too strong 
 in condemnation for those persons who endeavour to 
 arouse an agitation among a class of people so short- 
 sighted and so ready to turn against their own bene- 
 factors and their own interest. I am credibly informed 
 that one of these agitators, immediately after the 
 Bishop of Gloucester's unfortunate but harmlessly in- 
 tended speech at the Gloucester Agricultural Society's 
 dinner one of these agitators mounted a platform at 
 a village meeting and in plain language incited and. ad- 
 
382 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 vised the labourers to duck the farmers ! The agri- 
 cultural women either go out to field-work or become 
 indoor servants. In harvest they hay-make chiefly 
 light work, as raking ; and reap, which is much harder 
 labour ; but then, while reaping, they work their own 
 time, as it is done by the piece. Significantly enough, 
 they make longer hours while reaping. They are 
 notoriously late to arrive, and eager to return home on 
 the hayfield. The children help both in haymaking 
 and reaping. In spring and autumn they hoe and do 
 other piecework. On pasture farms they beat clots or 
 pick up stones out of the way of the mowers' scythes. 
 Occasionally, but rarely now, they milk. In winter 
 they wear gaiters, which give the ankles a most un- 
 gainly appearance. Those who go out to service get 
 very low wages at first from their extreme awkward- 
 ness, but generally quickly rise. As dairymaids they 
 get very good wages indeed. Dairymaids are scarce 
 and valuable. A dairymaid who can be trusted to 
 take charge of a dairy will sometimes get 20 besides 
 her board (liberal) and sundry perquisites. These 
 often save money, marry bailiffs, and help their 
 husbands to start a farm. 
 
 In the education provided for children Wiltshire 
 compares favourably with other counties. Long before 
 the passing of the recent Act in reference to education 
 the clergy had established schools in almost every 
 parish, and their exertions have enabled the greater 
 number of places to come up to the standard required 
 by the Act, without the assistance of a School Board. 
 The great difficulty is the distance children have to 
 walk to school, from the sparseness of population and 
 
APPENDIX III. 383 
 
 the number of outlying hamlets. This difficulty is felt 
 equally by the farmers, who, in the majority of cases, 
 find themselves situated far from a good school. In 
 only one place has anything like a cry for education 
 arisen, and that is on the extreme northern edge of the 
 country. The Vice-Chairman of the Swindon Cham- 
 ber of Agriculture recently stated that only one-half 
 of the entire population of Inglesham could read and 
 write. It subsequently appeared that the parish of 
 Inglesham was very sparsely populated, and that a 
 variety of circumstances had prevented vigorous efforts 
 being made. The children, however, could attend 
 schools in adjoining parishes, not farther than two 
 miles, a distance which they frequently walk in other 
 parts of the country. 
 
 Those who are so ready to cast every blame upon 
 the farmer, and to represent him as eating up the 
 earnings of his men and enriching himself with their 
 ill-paid labour, should remember that farming, as a 
 rule, is carried on with a large amount of borrowed 
 capital. In these days, when 6 an acre has been ex- 
 pended in growing roots for sheep, when the slightest 
 derangement of calculation in the price of wool, meat, 
 or corn, or the loss of a crop, seriously interferes with 
 a fair return for capital invested, the farmer has to 
 sail extremely close to the wind, and only a little more 
 would find his canvas shaking. It was only recently 
 that the cashier of the principal bank of an agri- 
 cultural county, after an unprosperous year, declared 
 that such another season would make almost every 
 farmer insolvent. Under these circumstances it is 
 really to be wondered at that they have done as much 
 
384 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 as they have for the labourer in the last few years, 
 finding him with better cottages, better wages, better 
 education, and affording him better opportunities of 
 rising in the social scale. 
 
 I am, Sir, faithfully yours, 
 
 RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
 Coate Farm, Swindon, 
 November 12. 
 
 THE END, 
 
 BILLING AND SONS, PRINTERS, CUILDFORD. 
 
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 Pandurang Harl. 
 
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 One of Two. 
 
 BY EDWARD GARRETT, 
 The Capol Girls. 
 
 CHEAP POPULAR NOVELS, continued* 
 
 BY CHARLES GIBBON. 
 Robin Gray. The Flower of the 
 
 For Lack of Gold. Forest. 
 What will the Braes of Yarrow. 
 World SayP The Golden Shaft. 
 In Honour Bound. Of High Degree. 
 In Love and War. Fancy Free. 
 For the King. Mead and Stream. 
 
 In PasturesGreen Loving a Dream. 
 Queen of the Mea- A Hard Knot. 
 
 dow. Heart's Delight. 
 
 A Heart's Problem 
 
 BY WILLIAM GILBERT. 
 Dr. Austin's Guests. 
 The Wizard of the Mountain. 
 James Duke. 
 
 BY JAMES GREENWOOD. 
 Dick Temple. 
 
 BY JOHN HABBERTON. 
 Brueton's Bayou. | Country Luck. 
 
 BY ANDREW HALLIDAY 
 Every-Day Papers. 
 
 BY LADY DUFFUS HARDY. 
 Paul Wynter's Sacrifice. 
 
 BY THOMAS HARDY. 
 Under the Greenwood Tree. 
 
 BY J. BERWICK HARWOOD. 
 The Tenth Earl. 
 
 BY JULIAN HAWTHORNE. 
 Garth. I Sebastian Strome 
 
 ElliceQuentln. | Dust. 
 Prince Saroni's Wife. 
 Fortune's Fool. I Beatrix Randolph. 
 Miss Cadogna. | Love or a Name. 
 
 BY SIR ARTHUR HELPS. 
 Ivan de Biron. 
 
 BY MRS. CASHEL HOEY. 
 The Lover's Creed. 
 
 BY TOM HOOD. 
 A Golden Heart. 
 
 BY MRS. GEORGE HOOPER. 
 The House of Raby. 
 
 BY TIGHE HOPKINS. 
 'Twixt Love and Duty. 
 
 BY MRS. ALFRED HUNT. 
 Thornicroft's Model. 
 The Leaden Casket. 
 Self-Condemned. 
 That other Person. 
 
 BY JEAN INGELOW. 
 Fated to be Free. 
 
 BY HARRIETT JAY. 
 The Dark Colleen. 
 The Queen of Connaught. 
 
 BY MARK KERSHAW. 
 Colonial Facts and Fictions. 
 BY R. AS HE KING. 
 A Drawn Game. 
 "The Wearing of the Green." 
 
 BY HENRY KINGSLEY. 
 Oakshott Castle. 
 
 BY E. LYNN LIN TON. 
 Patricia Kern ball. 
 The Atonement of Learn Dundas, 
 
CHATTO <* WINDUS, PICCADILLY. 
 
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 E. LYNN LINTON, continued 
 The World Well Lost. 
 Under which Lord ? 
 With a Silken Thread. 
 The Rebel of the Family. 
 "My Love." | lone. 
 
 BY HENRY W. LUCY. 
 Gideon Fleycc. 
 
 BY JUSTIN MCCARTHY. 
 
 Dear LadyDlsdaln MissMisanthrope 
 The Waterdale Donna Quixote. 
 
 Neighbours. The Comet of a 
 
 My Enemy's Season. 
 
 Daughter. Maid of Athens. 
 
 A Fair Saxon. Camiola. 
 
 Llnley Rochford. 
 
 BY MRS. MACDONELL. 
 Quaker Cousins. 
 
 BY KATHARINE S. MACQUOID. 
 The Evil Eye. | Lost Rose. 
 
 BY W. H. MALLOCK. 
 The New Republic. 
 
 BY FLORENCE MARRY AT. 
 Open! Sesame. Fighting the Alp, 
 A Harvest of Wild Written in Fire. 
 Oats. 
 
 BY J. MASTERMAN; 
 Half-a-dozen Daughters. 
 
 BY BRANDER MATTHEWS. 
 A Secret of the Sea, 
 
 BY JEAN MIDDLEMASS. 
 Touch and Go. | Mr. Dorilllon. 
 
 BY MRS. MOLESWORTH. 
 Hathercourt Rectory. 
 
 BY D. CHRISTIE MURRAY. 
 
 Hearts. 
 
 Way of the World. 
 
 A Bit of Human 
 Nature. 
 
 First Person Sin- 
 gular. 
 
 Cynic Fortune. 
 
 ALIfe'sAtonement 
 A Model Father. 
 Joseph's Coat. 
 Coals of Fire. 
 By the Gate of the 
 
 Sea. 
 Val Strange. 
 
 BY ALICE O'HANLON. 
 The Unforeseen. 
 
 BY MRS. OLIPHANT. 
 Whiteladies. 
 The Primrose Path. 
 The Greatest Heiress In England. 
 BY MRS. ROBERT O'REILLY. 
 Phoebe's Fortunes. 
 
 BY OUIDA. 
 
 Held In Bondage. 
 Strath more. 
 Chandos. 
 Under Two Flags. 
 Idalia. 
 
 Cecil Cas^e- 
 rn aine's Gage. 
 Tricotrin. 
 Puck. 
 
 Folle Farlne. 
 A Dog of Flanders. 
 Pascarel. 
 Signa. [Ine. 
 
 Princess Naprax* 
 
 TwoLittleWooden 
 
 Shoes. 
 
 In a Winter City. 
 Ariadne. 
 Friendship. 
 Moths. 
 Pipistrello. 
 A Village Com- 
 
 mune. 
 Bimbi. 
 Wanda. 
 Frescoes. 
 In Maremma. 
 Othmar. 
 
 CHEAP POPULAR NOVELS, continued-- 
 BY MARGARET AGNES PAUL. 
 Gentle and Simple. 
 
 BY JAMES PAYN. 
 
 Lost Sir Massing 
 herd. 
 
 A Perfect Trea- 
 sure. 
 
 Bentinck's Tutor. 
 
 Murphy's Master. 
 
 Like Father, Like 
 
 Son. 
 
 Marine Residence. 
 Married Beneath 
 
 Him. 
 Mirk Abbey. [Won. 
 
 A County Family. Not Wooed, but 
 At Her Mercy. Less Black than 
 A Woman's Ven- We're Painted. 
 
 geance. By Proxy. 
 
 Cecil's Tryst. Under One Roof. 
 
 Clyffards of Clyffe High Spirits. 
 The FamilyScape- Carlyon's Year. 
 
 grace. A Confidential 
 
 Foster Brothers. Agent. 
 Found Dead. Some Private 
 
 Best of Husbands. Views. 
 Walter's Word. From Exile. 
 Halves. A Grape from a 
 
 Fallen Fortunes. Thorn. 
 What He Cost Her For Cash Only. 
 HumorousStories Kit: A Memory. 
 Gwendoline's Har- The Canon's Ward 
 
 vest. Talk of the Town. 
 
 200 Reward. Holiday Tasks. 
 
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 Lady Lovelace. 
 
 BY EDGAR A. POE. 
 The Mystery of Marie Roget. 
 
 BY E. C. PRICE. 
 Valentina. | The Foreigners. 
 
 Mrs. Lancaster's Rival. 
 Gerald. 
 
 BY CHARLES READS. 
 It Is Never Too Late to Mend. 
 Hard Cash. | Peg Woffington. 
 
 Christie Johnstone. 
 Griffith Gaunt 
 Put Yourself in His Place. 
 The Double Marriage. 
 Love Me Little, Love Me Long. 
 Foul Play. 
 
 The Cloister and the Hearth. 
 The Course of True Love. 
 Autobiography of a Thief. 
 A Terrible Temptation. 
 The Wandering Heir. 
 A Simpleton. A Woman-Hater. 
 
 Readiana. The Jilt. 
 
 Singleheart and Doubleface. 
 Good Stories of Men and other 
 
 Animals. 
 
 BY MRS. J. H. RIDDELL. 
 
 Her Mother's Darling. 
 
 Prince of Wales's Garden Party. 
 
 Weird Stories. | Fairy Water. 
 
 The Uninhabited House. 
 
 The Mystery in Palace Gardens, 
 BY F. W. ROBINSON, 
 
 Women are Strange. 
 The Hands of Justice. 
 
32 BOOKS PUBLISHED BY CHATTO & WINDUB. 
 
 CHEAP POPULAR NOVELS, continued 
 
 BY JAMES RUNCIMAN. 
 Skippers and Shellbacks. 
 Grace Balmaign's Sweetheart. 
 Schools and Scholars. 
 
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 Round the Galley Fire. 
 On the Fo'k'sle Head. 
 In the Middle Watch. 
 A Voyage to the Cape- 
 
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 A Levantine Family. 
 ' BY GEORGE AUGUSTUS SALA. 
 Gaslight and Daylight. 
 
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 Bound to the Wheel. 
 One Against the World. 
 Guy Waterman. 
 The Lion in the Path. 
 Two Dreamers. 
 
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 Joan Merryweather. 
 Margaret and Elizabeth. 
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 Mary Jane's Memoirs. 
 Mary Jane Married. 
 
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 A Match in the Dark. 
 
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 The Golden Hoop. 
 
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 New Arabian Nights. | Prince Otto. 
 
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 Cressida. | Proud Ma.'sia 
 
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 A Fight for Life. 
 
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 Tales for the Marines. 
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 Diamond Cut Diamond. 
 
 BY ANTHONY TROLLOPE. 
 The Way We Live Now. 
 The American Senator. 
 Frau Frohmann. 
 Marlon Fay. 
 Kept in the Dark. 
 Mr. Scarborough's Family. 
 The Land-Leaguers. 
 The Golden Lion of Granpere. 
 John Caldigate. 
 
 By F. ELEANOR TROLLOPE. 
 Like Ships upon the Sea. 
 Anne Furness. | Mabel's Progress. 
 
 BY J. T. TROW BRIDGE. 
 Farnell's Folly. 
 
 BY IVAN TURGENIEFF, &c. 
 Stories from Foreign Novelists. 
 
 CHEAP POPULAR NOVELS, continued 
 
 BY MARK TWAIN. 
 Tom Sawyer. | A Tramp Abroad. 
 A Pleasure Trip on the Continent 
 
 of Europe. 
 
 The Stolen White Elephant. 
 Huckleberry Finn. 
 Life on the Mississippi. 
 The Prince and the Pauper. 
 
 BY C. C. FRASER-TYTLER. 
 Mistress Judith. 
 
 BY SARAH TYTLER. 
 What She Came Through. 
 The Bride's Pass. 
 Saint Mungo's City. 
 Beauty and the Beast. 
 Lady Bell. | Noblesse Oblige; 
 Citoyenne Jacquiline. 
 Disappeared. 
 
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 Cavalry Life. | Regimental Legends. 
 
 BY LADY WOOD. 
 Sablna. 
 
 BY EDMUND YATES. 
 Castaway. | The Forlorn Hope. 
 Land at Last. 
 
 ANONYMOUS. 
 Paul Ferroll. 
 Why Paul Ferroll Killed his Wife. 
 
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 Jeff Briggs's Love Story. By BRET 
 
 HARTE. 
 The Twins of Table Mountain. By 
 
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 A Day's Tour. By PERCY FITZGERALD. 
 Mrs. Gainsborough's Diamonds. By 
 
 JULIAN HAWTHORNE. 
 A Romance of the Queen's Hounds- 
 
 By CHARLES JAMES. 
 Kathleen Mavourneen. By Author 
 
 of " That Lass o' Lowrie's." 
 Lindsay's Luck. By the Author of 
 
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 Pretty Polly Pemberton. By the 
 
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 Trooping with Crows. ByC. L. PIRKIS 
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 trated by J. C. DOLLMAN. 
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 Doom: An Atlantic Episode. By 
 
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 Our Sensation Novel. Edited by 
 
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 Wife or No Wife ? By T. W. SPEIGHT. 
 The Silverado Squatters. By R. 
 
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