, //* t. rfc / THE OPEN AIR THE OPEN AIR RICHARD JEFFERIES AUTHOR OF 1 NATURE NEAR LONDON," "THE LIFE OF THE FIELDS," ETC. WITH INTRODUCTION BY THOMAS COKE WATKINS NEW YORK THOMAS Y. CROWELL & CO. PUBLISHERS COPYRIGHT, 1907, BY THOMAS Y. CROWELL & Co. UNIVERSITY PRESS, CAMBRIDGE. U. 8. A. CONTENTS SAINT GUIDO j GOLDEN-BROWN 30 WILD FLOWERS 38 SUNNY BRIGHTON 62 THE PINE WOOD 85 NATURE ON THE ROOF 98 ONE OF THE NEW VOTERS 113 THE MODERN THAMES 135 THE SINGLE-BARREL GUN 167 THE HAUNT OF THE HARE 172 THE BATHING SEASON 179 UNDER THE ACORNS 199 DOWNS 211 FOREST 220 BEAUTY IN THE COUNTRY 229 OUT OF DOORS IN FEBRUARY 244 HAUNTS OF THE LAPWING 261 OUTSIDE LONDON 272 ON THE LONDON ROAD 297 RED ROOFS OF LONDON 305 A WET NIGHT IN LONDON . . . .,. . . 311 INTRODUCTION LL things seem possible in the open air." In these few words we have an epitome of Jefferies' philosophy of Nature. To write as he has written, to be confident of Nature and to share the secrets of her penetralia, requires more than the mere power of observation, however acute, or a life of reclusion, however remote. It necessitates a love of out-of- door life, as fond, as passionate, as devoted as that of lover for his mistress. It calls for close com- munion with the earth and sky, at all hours and in all seasons ; not only during the gleam of summer sunshine, but amid frost and snow. " So it has ever been to me," he tells us, " by day or night, summer or winter; beneath the 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. To the heaven thought can reach, lifted up by the ascent of the flame-shaped fir. Round the spruce the blue was deepened, con- centrated by the fixed point j the memory of that INTRODUCTION g-~.org ~^ae spot, as it were, of the sky is still fresh I can see it distinctly still beautiful and full of meaning. It is painted in bright colour in my mind, colour thrice laid, and indeljble; as one passes a shrine and bows the head to the Madonna, so I recall the picture and stoop in spirit to the aspiration it yet arouses. For there is no saint like the sky, sun- light shining from its face." It was when Jefferies lived in the open air as the young Wiltshire yeoman, wholly unconscious of the momentous influence these early Nature studies were exerting on his character and life, that he gained the valuable material for these essays. This education, he tells us, must be sought direct from Nature. " All of you with little children, who have no need to count expense, or even if you have such need, take them somehow into the country among green grass and yellow wheat, among the trees, by hills and streams, if you wish their highest education, that of the heart and soul, to be accom- plished. Therein shall they find a Secret a knowledge not to be written, not to be found in books. They shall know the sun and the wind, the running water, and the breast of the broad earth. Under the green spray, among the hazel- boughs where the nightingale sings, they shall find a Secret, a feeling, a sense that fills the heart with an emo- tion never to be forgotten. They will forget the viii INTRODUCTION books they will never forget the grassy fields. If you wish your children to think deep things, to know the holiest emotions, take them to the woods and hills, and give them the freedom of the meadows." And he illustrates this most beautifully in the opening chapter of this volume. It begins with a child story, a fairy tale which, like The Water Babies, holds thought and charm for children of a larger growth. " Saint Guido ran out at the garden gate into a sandy lane, and down the lane until he came to a grassy bank." They called him Guido because " they thought if a great painter could be a little boy, then he would be something like this one." And he was Saint Guido because his golden curls made a halo round his brow. He runs away to a wheatfield, where he talks as a comrade to the birds and bees, the cornflowers and the May-weed. The fern had taught him a secret if you want to hear what the grass and the wheat say, you must be careful not to interfere with any of the things of the field. Remembering this, Guido stopped chasing a butterfly, and, lying down in the grass, he whispered, " Rush, rush, tell them I am here." Then the nearest wheat-ear talks to him of what it has been thinking, talks in wise, wonderful fashion of the problems of labour and poverty, and weaves a poem and a sermon into one. ix INTRODUCTION Turn over a few pages and read the essay on "Wild Flowers." "Bathed in buttercups to the dewlap, the roan cows standing in the golden lake watched the hours with calm frontlet; watched the light descending, the meadows filling, with knowl- edge of long months of succulent clover." " Of all things there is none so sweet as sweet air one great flower it is, drawn around, about, over, and inclosing, like Aphrodite's arms ; as if the dome of the sky were a bellflower drooping down over us, and the magical essence filling all the room of the earth. Sweetest of all things is wild-flower air." And again we find him writing of " Red Roofs of London " and other familiar themes. " It is much to be regretted," observes Mr. Salt, in his Study of Jefferies, " that he did not write more in that vein ? but the reason is obvious he was compelled for the most part to defer to the wishes of editors and publishers in the selections of his subjects, and the country was found to yield a better profit than the town." Most of these papers were written during 1882-4, an d were originally contributed to the English magazines. No one ever lived, I believe, unless it were Wordsworth, who took greater delight in the mere beauty of Nature. "Never yet," he tells us, "have I been able to write what I felt about the sunlight INTRODUCTION only. Colour and form and light are as magic to me. It is a trance." But more than Wordsworth he is the true Laureate of the English country- side. Although he never had the spiritual insight and elevation of Wordsworth, never rose " through Nature up to Nature's God," yet Nature was his teacher. He was the child who spoke in the music of the falling water, the sweetness of the meadow and the flower, and he heeded not, he knew not, that there was separation between them and the joy of animal life, the freshness of youth. They were all parts of one whole, harmoniously blended. Wordsworth accepted the past, its wisdom, its experience; he added to his poet's gift a deep sense of the divinity and unity of the animate and the inanimate : while Jefferies is content to pour out his ardent, simple, pure love for The warm woods, the sunny hills, and fresh green fields And mountains not less green, and flocks and herds, And thickets full of songsters, and the voice of lordly birds, an unexpected sound Heard now and then from morn to latest eve, admon- ishing the man who walks below Of solitude and silence in the sky. These have we and a thousand nooks of earth have also these, but nowhere else is found, Nowhere (or is it fancy?) can be found the one sen- sation that is here, xi INTRODUCTION Here as it found its way into my heart in childhood, here as it abides