RICHARD JEFFERIES

(1848-1887)

N ENGLISH essayist of unusual quality was Richard Jefferies, whose birthplace was near the Wiltshire village of Swindon. There, November 6th, 1848, the son of a farmer, he began the life that was to end untimely before he had come to the age of forty. His baptismal name was John Richard. Self-educated by sheer willpower, struggling up out of untoward humble circumstances, Jefferies offers an example of one of the finest spectacles earth affords: personal merit winning its way against odds.

He wrote early for local newspapers, and contributed tentatively to Fraser's Magazine. In 1877, still under thirty, he settled at Surbiton near London, in order to take up the literary career for better or worse. He wrote for the Pall Mall Gazette, Longmans' Magazine, and like periodicals; his essays attracting attention by their individual note, fresh spirit, accurate descriptions, and loving feeling for nature.

RICHARD JEFFERIES

Although dying comparatively young,August 14th, 1887, at Goring in Sussex, (?)— Jefferies was a voluminous writer, his list of published works numbering twenty-four. Of these, characteristic early works were 'The Gamekeeper at Home: or, Sketches from Natural History and Rural Life' (1878); 'The Amateur Poacher' (1879); 'Hodge and His Masters' (1880); and 'Round About a Great Estate (1880). A number of novels also date from this period; and while Jefferies was deficient in construction and action, and not properly a maker of fiction, his fine descriptive powers and strong thought give even his stories a certain value. But it is in the essay devoted to the study and praise of nature that he becomes a master. When he began to write of British scenery, of the birds, flowers, and trees of his own region, he produced work that won him a unique position among modern English essayists. Volumes like 'Life of the Fields' (1884), the wonderful autobiographical sketch 'Story of My Heart' (1883), and the posthumous collection of papers published by his widow under the title 'Field and Hedgerow,' illustrate phases of this activity.

During the six final years of his life Jefferies was an invalid, and spent his time in country villages in the quest of health; yet some of the most suggestive and beautiful of his essays were written under these conditions, the poetic and mystic in him coming out strong towards the last, and lending a sort of magic to his pen.

Like the American John Burroughs, Jefferies unites knowledge and love of his chief subject with the power of popular literary presentation. Technicalities are forgotten in the infectious glow of his enthusiasm. The two writers are not unlike, also, in their philosophy, which interprets Nature without discovering in her the conventional religious symbols. But Jefferies is more the prose poet, and has an idealistic element which gives a peculiar charm to his essays. The exquisite passage which follows, from the Story of My Heart,' is as good an illustration of this mystic quality as the whole body of his writings affords. Seldom has a more remarkable confession of spiritual travail been written down. The 'Story' is so candid, so intimate, yet so delicate; and it is all true, "absolutely and unflinchingly true," as he says. One hardly knows at first whether it be a real experience or a literary tour de force, -until more knowledge of Jefferies, of his honesty and unconventionality, stamps the book as naïvely genuine. The poetry of it will be felt by any one sensitive to beautiful words that carry beautiful thoughts. An example is also given of his earlier, more objective and practical mood and manner.

T

HILL VISIONS

From The Story of My Heart'

HE story of my heart commences seventeen years ago. In the glow of youth there were times every now and then when I felt the necessity of a strong inspiration of soul-thought. My heart was dusty, parched for the want of the rain of deep feeling; my mind arid and dry, for there is a dust which settles on the heart as well as that which falls on a ledge. It is injurious to the mind as well as to the body to be always in one place, and always surrounded by the same circumstances. A species of thick clothing slowly grows about the mind; the pores are choked, little habits become a part of existence, and by degrees the mind is inclosed in a husk. When this began to form, I felt eager to escape from it, to throw it off like heavy clothing, to drink deeply once more at the fresh fountain of life. An inspiration-a long deep breath of the pure air of thought -could alone give health to the heart.

There was a hill to which I used to resort at such periods. The labor of walking three miles to it, all the while gradually ascending, seemed to clear my blood of the heaviness accumulated at home. On a warm summer day the slow continued rise required continued effort, which carried away the sense of oppression. The familiar every-day scene was soon out of sight; I came to other trees, meadows, and fields; I began to breathe a new air and to have a fresher aspiration. I restrained my soul till I reached the sward of the hill; psyche, the soul that longed to be loose,-I would write psyche always instead of soul, to avoid meanings which have become attached to the word "soul," but it is awkward to do so. Clumsy indeed are all words the moment the wooden stage of commonplace life is left. I restrained psyche, my soul, till I reached and put my foot on the grass at the beginning of the green hill itself.

Moving up the sweet short turf, at every step my heart seemed to obtain a wider horizon of feeling; with every inhalation of rich pure air, a deeper desire. The very light of the sun was whiter and more brilliant here. By the time I had reached the summit I had entirely forgotten the petty circumstances and the annoyances of existence. I felt myself, myself. There was an intrenchment on the summit, and going down into the fosse I walked round it slowly to recover breath. On the southwestern side there was a spot where the outer bank had partially slipped, leaving a gap. There the view was over a broad plain, beautiful with wheat and inclosed by a perfect amphitheatre of green hills. Through these hills there was one narrow groove or pass southwards, where the white clouds seemed to close in the horizon. Woods hid the scattered hamlets and farm-houses, so that I was quite alone.

I was utterly alone with the sun and the earth. Lying down on the grass, I spoke in my soul to the earth, the sun, the air, and the distant sea far beyond sight. I thought of the earth's firmness I felt it bear me up; through the grassy couch there came an influence as if I could feel the great earth speaking to me. I thought of the wandering air-its pureness, which is its beauty: the air touched me and gave me something of itself. I spoke to the sea;-though so far, in my mind I saw it green at the rim of the earth and blue in deeper ocean; I desired to have its strength, its mystery and glory. Then I addressed the sun, desiring the soul-equivalent of his light and brilliance,

his endurance and unwearied race. I turned to the blue heaven over, gazing into its depth, inhaling its exquisite color and sweetness. The rich blue of the unattainable flower of the sky drew my soul toward it, and there it rested; for pure color is rest of heart. By all these I prayed: I felt an emotion of the soul beyond all definition; prayer is a puny thing to it, and the word is a rude sign to the feeling, but I know no other. By the blue heaven, by the rolling sun bursting through untrodden space, a new ocean of ether is every day unveiled. By the fresh and wandering air encompassing the world; by the sea sounding on the shore- the green sea white-flecked at the margin, and the deep ocean; by the strong earth under me. Then returning, I prayed by the sweet thyme, whose little flowers I touched with my hand; by the slender grass; by the crumble of dry, chalky earth I took up and let fall through my fingers. Touching the crumble of earth, the blade of grass, the thyme flower; breathing the earth-encircling air; thinking of the sea and the sky, holding out my hand for the sunbeams to touch it, prone on the sward in token of deep reverence,- thus I prayed that I might touch to the unutterable existence infinitely higher than Deity.

With all the intensity of feeling which exalted me, all the intense communion I held with the earth, the sun and sky, the stars hidden by the light, with the ocean—in no manner can the thrilling depth of these feelings be written. With these I prayed as if they were the keys of an instrument, of an organ, with which I swelled forth the notes of my soul, redoubling my own voice by their power. The great sun burning with light; the strong earth, dear earth; the warm sky; the pure air; the thought of ocean,- the inexpressible beauty of all filled me with a rapture, an ecstasy, an inflatus. With this inflatus, too, I prayed. Next to myself I came and recalled myself, my bodily existence. I held out my hand; the sunlight gleamed on the skin and the iridescent nails; I recalled the mystery and beauty of the flesh. I thought of the mind with which I could see the ocean sixty miles distant, and gather to myself its glory. I thought of my inner existence, that consciousness which is called the soul. These that is, myself-I threw in the balance to weigh the prayer the heavier. My strength of body, mind, and soul I flung into it; I put forth my strength; I wrestled and labored and toiled in might of prayer. The prayer, this soul-emotion, was in

itself; not for an object-it was a passion. I hid my face in the grass; I was wholly prostrated; I lost myself in the wrestle; I was rapt and carried away.

Becoming calmer, I returned to myself and thought, reclining in rapt thought, full of aspiration, steeped to the lips of my soul in desire. I did not then define or analyze or understand this. I see now that what I labored for was soul-life, more soul-nature, to be exalted, to be full of soul-learning. Finally I rose, walked half a mile or so along the summit of the hill eastwards, to soothe myself and come to the common ways of life again. Had any shepherd accidentally seen me lying on the turf, he would only have thought that I was resting a few minutes; I made no outward show. Who could have imagined the whirlwind of passion that was going on within me as I reclined there! I was greatly exhausted when I reached home. Occasionally I went upon the hill, deliberately deeming it good to do so; then again, this craving carried me away up there of itself. Though the principal feeling was the same, there were variations in the mode in which it affected me.

Sometimes on lying down on the sward, I first looked up at the sky, gazing for a long time till I could see deep into the azure and my eyes were full of the color; then I turned my face to the grass and thyme, placing my hands at each side of my face so as to shut out everything and hide myself. Having drunk deeply of the heaven above, and felt the most glorious beauty of the day, and remembering the old, old sea, which (as it seemed to me) was but just yonder at the edge, I now became lost, and absorbed into the being or existence of the universe. I felt down deep into the earth under, and high above into the sky, and farther still to the sun and stars, still farther beyond the stars into the hollow of space; and losing thus my separateness of being, came to seem like a part of the whole. Then I whispered to the earth beneath, through the grass and thyme down into the depth of its ear, and again up to the starry space hid behind the blue of day. Traveling in an instant across the distant sea, I saw, as if with actual vision, the palms and cocoanut-trees, the bamboos of India, and the cedars of the extreme south. Like a lake with islands the ocean lay before me, as clear and vivid as the plain beneath in the midst of the amphitheatre of hills.