The Eulogy of Richard Jefferies
by Walter Besant · English · Gutenberg #36228 · 576,523 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: The Eulogy of Richard Jefferies
Author: Walter Besant
Release date: May 26, 2011 [eBook #36228]
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Language: English
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[Illustration]
THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES
BY
WALTER BESANT
'I hearing got, who had but ears,
And sight, who has but eyes before;
I moments live, who lived but years,
And truth discern, who knew but learning's lore.
THOREAU.
[Illustration]
_WITH A PORTRAIT_
London
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.
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, 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.
PAGE
CHAPTER I.
COATE 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
CHAPTER VII.
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.
CHAPTER I.
COATE FARM.
"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 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."
* * * * *
Richard Jefferies--christened John Richard, but he was always called by
his second name--was born on November 6, 1848, at the farmhouse of
Coate--you may pronounce it, if you please, in Wiltshire fashion--Caute.
The house stands on the road from Swindon to Marlborough, about two
miles and a half from the former place. It has now lost its old
picturesqueness, 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.
Beside the kitchen is a large modern room, which was used in Richard'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 particular 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 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 afterwards recovered. It was finally lost
about twelve years ago. To belong to an old English yeoman stock is,
perhaps, good enough ancestry for anyone, though not, certainly,
"showy." Richard 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
elsewhere, 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 Ferne Farm," and in "Bevis," we are still either at Coate Farm
itself or on the hills around.
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 plantations 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. Wayland 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.
Wanborough, 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,
Winchester, 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 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 themselves with water. And as for his special
study of creatures and their ways, the wildness 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? Remember 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 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, Cornwall, 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 Swindon,
nobody has ever inquired whether there 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 Railway, 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 Liddington or Barbury. It is a market town of
six or eight thousand people. Formerly there was a settlement of Dutch
in the place connected 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 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 kerbstone; 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 and west, there stretches
away the great expanse 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 Richard
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 purblind 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
England must be renamed. As Yorkshire hath its Craven, its Cleveland,
its Richmond, and its Holderness, so Wiltshire shall have its
Jefferies-land, lying in an irregular oval on whose circumference stand
Swindon, Barbury, Liddington, Ashbourne Chase and Wanborough.
Richard Jefferies was the second of five children, 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 qualities 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
disposition of reserve, a love of solitude, and a habit of thinking for
themselves. No gregarious man, no man who loved to sit among his
fellows, could possibly have written even the shortest of Jefferies'
papers.
The household at Coate has been partly--but only partly--described in
"Amaryllis at the Fair." It consisted of his parents, himself, 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
original. 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
unpractical 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 or on that; he
conceals some things and exaggerates 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:
"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
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 experience 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 directed 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 favourite flower.'
"'Richard?' asked Amaryllis.
"'Richard,' repeated Iden. And Amaryllis, 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, and 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.
"'Richard'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?
"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 previously, 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 care 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 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 anything 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 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 unhappiness, the misfortunes, the Nemesis of two
hundred years. This family of Idens had endured already two hundred
years of unhappiness and discordance for no original fault of
theirs, simply because they had once been fortunate 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.
"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 followed, 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 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.
"Yet the little things fed in perfect confidence. He was so still,
so _very_ still--quiescent--they feared him no more than they did
the wall; they could not hear his breathing.
"Had they been gifted with human intelligence, 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 proceed 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.
"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 muscles, 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. 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 contains 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 beautiful fields and gardens round it; in the midst 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 happiness--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 exceptional cleverness at school,
but Mrs. Harrild remembers that he was always as a child reading and
drawing, and would amuse himself for hours at a time over some old
volume of "Punch," or the "Illustrated London News," 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 Richard 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 constant correspondence with
her. His letters, indeed, are sometimes like a diary of his life, as
will be seen from the extracts I shall presently make from them.
At the age of nine the boy went home for good. He was then sent to
school at Swindon.
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' 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 pastimes 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 remember 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 'Reservoir,' a prettily-situated lake
surrounded by trees, and with many romantic nooks on the banks.
Here we often 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 explore 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":
"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 sharpening. He could easily have ordered half a
dozen men to throw the tree, and they would have obeyed
immediately; but then the individuality and interest of the work
would have been lost. Unless he did it himself its importance 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, 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 (interchangeable definitions in this case) each
rose a few inches higher than the general gunwale. 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
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, appearance, 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 surrender that which he had found, and which he deemed
his own. This unbending independence 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 amusements provided in adjacent houses, or to the
grander entertainments of the higher nobles. 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 appearance
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, it 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 tournament, 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
immense arms, brown and hairy, his powerful 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
defiant temper; all the utter recklessness and warrior's instinct.
He stood every inch a man, with dark, curling, short-cut hair,
brown cheek and Roman 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 adventures 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, 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
perhaps his secret pride was hurt."
After his return from Sydenham the boy, as I have said, went to school
for a year or two at Swindon. Then he presently began to read. He had
always delighted in books, especially 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 creatures 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 miserable 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. Presently, 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 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 sixpence 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. Richard
Jefferies differed in one respect 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-sighted 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," 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 continually 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
forgotten, and how distorted are the memories which remain. Richard
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 and 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 Round 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 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 perpetually 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 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 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 afterwards;
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 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 no
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 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 Jefferies, "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
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 a stranger to their ambitions, ignorant of their
crooked ways, their bickerings, and their pleasures. 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, 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 presently 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
revelation give in exchange? What words of praise and gratitude can we
find in return for this unfolding of the Book of Fleeting Life?
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 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.
Richard Jefferies 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 warning or premonition against the journey.
Reliance 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 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 yourself, 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 company 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 discovery 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 Moscow, and reluctantly returned. But they would not go
home; perhaps, because they were still athirst for adventure; perhaps,
because they were ashamed. They then saw an advertisement in a newspaper
which fired their imaginations again. The advertiser undertook, 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 Russia; they called at the agent's office and paid their
fares. Their tickets took them free to Liverpool, 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 being doubtless a new
thing with him--roused so much suspicion in the mind of the pawnbroker
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 himself advanced them the money, keeping the
watches as security, and sent them home after an expedition which lasted
a fortnight altogether. 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 Russia 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 his bed.
This room was sacred. Here he read; here he spent all his leisure time
in reading. He read during this period an immense 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 lacks
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 Swindon, 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 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 journalist? First of all, the narrow
family circumstances 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 afterwards 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 possible. 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.
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. Perhaps 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 compositors 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 handwriting.
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 and reserve. In those days he used to draw a great deal,
and is said to have acquired considerable 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 Richard 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; his lower lip thick; his
eyebrows distinguished by the meditative droop; his complexion was fair,
with very little colour. The most remarkable 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 physical 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 Richard Jefferies could never be
clubable. What would he talk about at the club? The theatre? He never
went there. Literature 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 profession 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 everything. 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 obtained work on the _North Wilts Herald_, and
afterwards became in addition the Swindon correspondent of the _Wilts
and Gloucestershire Standard_, published at Cirencester. 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 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 newspaper.
I have before me a little book called "Reporting, Editing, and
Authorship," published without date at Swindon, and by John Snow and
Co., Ivy Lane, London. I think it appeared 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
reporter--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 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 himself if he contributes papers
upon these subjects to the daily papers or to the magazines; thus he
will grow to be regarded as a representative man. Next, he should study
everywhere 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.
One piece of advice contrasts strongly with the description of him given
by his cousin. He has found out that eccentricity of appearance 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 presumptuous: 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 manuscript 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
understand 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 expenditure
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 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 himself, his work, his hopes, and his
disappointments, 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 prospects 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--of industry and application intense and unwearied; 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 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.? I remember him as
a pleasant gentleman, anxious not to give trouble, and the result
is ..." and so forth. When one understands that these letters were
written by the immature writer, such little things, with which they
abound, are pleasing.
In March, 1866, he describes the commencement 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
neighbourhood. 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 legends,
examine antiquities, measure this, estimate that; and a thousand
other employments 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 antiquary. I was given to
understand at school that in ancient days Britain was a
waste--uninhabited, rude and savage. I find this is a mistake. I
see traces of former habitation, and former generations, in all
directions. There, Roman 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 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
unfounded 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 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 discover 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 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 produced 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.
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 Repose 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 administration 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 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 resolves to
cultivate the poor people more.
"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 characteristic touch: "I do not forget
A----. Her large and beautiful eyes have haunted me ever since our visit
to Worthing. Remember me to her, _but please do it privately; let no
one else know 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 composed 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 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 encouraged me, and on the
following morning I set to work and wrote a letter to the Prince,
communicating some rather important information 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 impossible to write
more cordially in French than the Empress has done. Now came
another 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 advertisement and
came to her to act as interpreter. She did so. After a while it
crept out that these rascals were abusing their employer behind 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 poor she could not call on
her old companion; indeed, her pride would not permit. These were
the men, she said, from whom the Prussians 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 adventures 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 paddles began to move, great
circles of phosphoric 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 rushed 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
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 understand 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 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! 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 concerned 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; he 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 unremittingly 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 supplied 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 employ me, but said that, as
their circulation at Swindon was very small, they could give but a
small price--quoting a sum which absolutely would not buy me a
dinner once a week. This was no good. Other papers further off
refused entirely. As for answering advertisements, 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 L2 10s.; personal
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 threepence. 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--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 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 remarkable; 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
opportunity offering, I wrote to Disraeli, describing 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 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 of success, even
in a money sense; for what publisher would not grasp at a work
commended by Disraeli? This is a day of triumph to me. In an
obscure country village, personally 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 our 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 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
threshold 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
engaged 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 circumstances 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 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 opposition from everyone. All my friends prophesied 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 pleasure
of sending you some copies when it appears."
Alas! 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 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 admires 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 supports 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 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 L60 or L80 at least. This I cannot possibly
afford; I have no friends who can afford it. I can borrow, it is
true, but that seems like putting a 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 L60 or L80. The first
little book I have selected to issue is a compendium of reporting
experience for the use of learners. It is almost finished--all but
binding--and the first copy 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 L10; 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 suggestions 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
convenience. 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. 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 Dayhouse Farm, adjacent to Coate. For the present
there could be no thought of marrying, 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 following year, in
November, 1872--a real, indisputable 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. 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; if 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, inspired, if any man ever was,
with the thought that he knew all about the subject, sat down 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 sufficient 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 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 everything 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 make 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 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. 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 employer.
It is the labourer himself who wants improvement. He will do
everything 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 his 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 'public,'
and lets his household go its way. Of course, he is only doing what
many of his betters are doing in his own class and 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 following up the advantage and
experience acquired by these letters. It seems incredible. Meanwhile 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 History 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 Swindon 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 _Athenaeum_,
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 beforehand of enormous profits to be
shared. Poor wretches! they never get any profits. Nobody ever buys any
copies. There is never for the unfortunate writer any gold or any glory,
but only sure, certain, and bitter disappointment.
As yet, Jefferies still clung to his old ideas, and had learned none of
the lessons which the _Times_ letters should have taught him. Therefore
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, and all to no
purpose; for no one has told him the simplest law of all--that Art is
imitation. 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' engagement, 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 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 hillside, 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!
CHAPTER 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 Farming," 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,
purchase the entire sewage of an adjacent town. Their buildings,
their streets of cattle-stalls, 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 gravitation. 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 suitable 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."
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
afterwards left it. His earliest and fastest friend was _Fraser's
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-congratulation, for each
as he came to man's 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 nominally, 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 perfectly free and independent, and yet as
completely 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 system of the
parish. It was the keystone of that parental plan of government
that he believed 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 everybody 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 declined 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 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 entering 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 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 practically useful as cemeteries, there can be
no valid reason why spaces should not be available for a system of
gardens. Numerous companies 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 workman with a garden? If the plan
of universal division of land were thoroughly carried out, it
follows that the cities would disappear, 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
workman 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 direction of a proper staff of
officers, for the distribution of lots, the collection of rent, the
prevention 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 difficulties. 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 inducement."
In the year 1874 he meditates a great work, which he began but never
finished, using up his notes in after-years for what is really the 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 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 reference 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 agricultural women. It is not a pleasant work. Everyone who
has walked over a ploughed field remembers how the boots 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 encourages 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 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 remuneration 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 surpass 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 day and night, and
higher up, upon the downs, the skies are full of larks carolling at
'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 ornament; 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 and his poetical papers. For
the _Mark Lane Express_ he wrote on "Village Organization"; for the
_Standard_ 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 wandered 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 innumerable are the peggles. Let not the modern Goths destroy
our hedges, so typical of an English landscape, so full of all that
can delight the eye and please the mind. Spare them 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 '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 Aldbourne Chase where the skirmish
took place before 'Newbury Battle.' 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
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 turning 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 directions 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 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 quarrelling 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 wolves will overtake him. In vain will he turn and
double, their unerring noses will find him out. In vain the
tunnels of the 'bury,' they will come as surely under ground as
above. At last, wearied, panting, frightened almost to death, the
timid creature will hide in a _cul-de-sac_, a hole that has no
outlet, burying its head in the sand. Then the tiny bloodhounds
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 '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 typifying 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, 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. 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 immense 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 represent!
To us each hour is of consequence, especially in this modern day
which has invented 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 vale, and
gaze up at the slow clouds as they drift across the blue vault. The
subtle influence 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 exquisite 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 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 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
unbidden to the lip, and here, if anywhere, that order of
architecture might have taken its inspiration. 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 prehistoric, the edge of the forest melts
away upon downs that bear grander specimens than can be seen
elsewhere--Stonehenge and Avebury are near. The trout-fisher can
approach very close to it. The rail gives easy communication, 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:
"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 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 external 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 delicate 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
inscriptions, press half-a-crown into his hand, and let him pass to
his potato-digging. There is one 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. Incidentally it
may 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 accumulation 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 sunbeams from the arrow-slit 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 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 lady, 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 generation was gone. So that the boast of his
building 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 'beetle with his drowsy hum' 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 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, muttering 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 Inkerman, at Lucknow, or later still, at
Coomassie, fell doing his duty. And these 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. 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 Skafting
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 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
bind its feeble walls together. Of the pavements, 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
explained, 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 'cure' is, nevertheless, so scant of souls,
that service in the morning in one, and in the evening 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
himself. The "Strange Story" was published on June 30, 1866. It is
blood-curdling; it is, in fact, 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
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 himself. The list of his serious attempts at fiction is
respectable as regards number. It includes the following:
"The Scarlet Shawl," one vol., 1874.
"Restless Human Hearts," three vols., 1875.
"World's End," three vols., 1877.
"Green Fern Farm," three vols., 1880.
"The Dewy Morn," two vols., 1884.
"Amaryllis at the Fair," one vol., 1887.
To these may be added--but they must be 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. 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 _Athenaeum_, and one from the
_Graphic_. The story was also made a peg by a writer in the _Globe_ for
some unkind 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 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 complete inability to discover how bad his early work really is? It is
that he is wholly unable to understand--no young writer can
understand--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,
half-formed characters, clouds of bewildering colours, and imagines that
he has fixed these floating splendours in immortal verse. When he 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 of 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 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 wonderful; 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 promise
of a story not worked out--left, not half untold, but hardly begun, as
in "After London" and in "Amaryllis at the Fair." You may put down any
of his so-called 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
collectors 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.
There are limitations in the work of every man. With such a man as
Jefferies, the limitations 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, disappointment,
even derision, awaited him. In the "Eulogy of Richard 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 promise at all. The thing cannot be wholly explained. It is a
phenomenon in literature.
It is best, I say, to acknowledge these limitations 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
unfettered 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.
"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 suppressed 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 beforehand 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 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 "Restless Human 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 someone to stand at his elbow and make him tear up
everything--everything--that pretended to describe a society of which he
knew nothing. The hero appears to have been a wicked nobleman. Heavens!
what did this young provincial 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
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 generation 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
publishing his own books. He says:
"This is about the worst speculation into which I could possibly put the
money. Therefore 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 resemblance is not complete, let me
say, because the new author, on this theory, would not pay 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 L20 towards the risk of the
new novel. Nothing came of the proposal, and "In Summer-Time" went to
join "Only a Girl."
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 property 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 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
approbation, 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. Henceforth 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 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 Ferne 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 interesting 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 knowledge, 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 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 platforms; they would have sought to be mentioned in the papers; they
would have courted popularity in the ways very well known to all, and
commonly practised without concealment. 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 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 knowledge 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 conversation 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 reserved, 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 subsequently wrote. Let us, therefore, content ourselves 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 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 appreciation, must in the end become destructive
to the highest genius. Praise makes a man write better. Praise gives him
that happy self-confidence 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 "Gamekeeper at Home" he received an
ever increasing share of praise, appreciation and encouragement.
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 wonderful 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 whose 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!--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, therefore, 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 curiously, unknown and unsuspected by himself. 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 characteristic 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 eagerness I 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
connecting his work continually with what I learned of his life and
habits, and by learning, day by 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 remained 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 absolute 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 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 allowance 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 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 conversed
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 Reade. 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
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
household 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 multitudinous 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 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,
doubtless, 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."
"_Nov. 11._--Gold-crested wren and tom-tit on furze clinging 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 leafless, 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."
"_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 disappeared 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; fearless, too; _operatic_ singer.
"More stitchwort; now common; it looks like ten petals, 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 downwards, 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 lengthwise, 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 immediately 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
business 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 publisher had given him a small solid income in
return for having all his work. Consider: for the truly beautiful papers
on the 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 afterwards. Would four hundred pounds a year--to
Jefferies it would h
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