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THE HILLS AND THE VALE
_All rights reserved_
THE HILLS AND THE VALE
BY
RICHARD JEFFERIES
WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY
EDWARD THOMAS
LONDON: DUCKWORTH & CO.
3 HENRIETTA STREET, COVENT GARDEN
1909
TO
JOHN WILLIAMS
OF WAUN WEN
CONTENTS
PAGE
INTRODUCTION ix
CHOOSING A GUN 1
SKATING 22
MARLBOROUGH FOREST 27
VILLAGE CHURCHES 35
BIRDS OF SPRING 43
THE SPRING OF THE YEAR 54
VIGNETTES FROM NATURE 70
A KING OF ACRES 79
THE STORY OF SWINDON 104
UNEQUAL AGRICULTURE 134
VILLAGE ORGANIZATION 151
THE IDLE EARTH 207
AFTER THE COUNTY FRANCHISE 224
THE WILTSHIRE LABOURER 247
ON THE DOWNS 270
THE SUN AND THE BROOK 280
NATURE AND ETERNITY 284
THE DAWN 306
INTRODUCTION
This book consists of three unpublished essays and of fifteen
reprinted from _Longman's Magazine_, _Fraser's Magazine_, the _New
Quarterly_, _Knowledge_, _Chambers's Magazine_, the _Graphic_, and
the _Standard_, where they have probably been little noticed since
the time of their appearance. Several more volumes of this size
might have been made by collecting all the articles which were not
reprinted in Jefferies' lifetime, or in 'Field and Hedgerow' and
'Toilers of the Field,' shortly after his death. But the work in
such volumes could only have attracted those very few of the
omnivorous lovers of Jefferies who have not already found it out.
After the letters on the Wiltshire labourer, addressed to the
_Times_ in 1872, he wrote nothing that was not perhaps at the time
his best, but, being a journalist, he had often to deal immediately,
and in a transitory manner, with passing events, or to empty a page
or two of his note-books in response to an impulse assuredly no
higher than habit or necessity. Many of these he passed over or
rejected in making up volumes of essays for publication; some he
certainly included. Of those he passed over, some are equal to the
best, or all but the best, of those which he admitted, and I think
these will be found in 'The Hills and the Vale.' There are others
which need more excuse. The two early papers on 'Marlborough Forest'
and 'Village Churches,' which were quoted in Besant's 'Eulogy,' are
interesting on account of their earliness (1875), and charming
enough to please those who read all Jefferies' books. 'The Story of
Swindon,' 'Unequal Agriculture,' and 'Village Organization,' will be
valued for their matter, and because they are examples of his
writing, and of his interests and opinions, before he was thirty.
That they are partly out of date is true, but they are worth
remembering by the student of Jefferies and of his times; they do
credit to his insight and even to his foresight; and there is still
upon them, here and there, some ungathered fruit. The later
agricultural articles, 'The Idle Earth,' 'After the County
Franchise,' and 'The Wiltshire Labourer,' are the work of his ripe
years. There were also several papers published not only after his
death, but after the posthumous collections. I have included all of
these, for none of them needs defence, while 'Nature and Eternity'
ranks with his finest work. The three papers now for the first time
printed might have been, but are not, admitted on that ground alone.
'On Choosing a Gun' and 'Skating' belong to the period of 'The
Amateur Poacher,' and are still alive, and too good to destroy. 'The
Dawn' is beautiful.
Among these eighteen papers are examples from nearly every kind
and period of Jefferies' work, though his earliest writing is
still decently interred where it was born, in Wiltshire and
Gloucestershire papers (chiefly the _North Wilts Herald_), except
such as was disinterred by the late Miss Toplis for 'Jefferies
Land,' 'T.T.T.,' and 'The Early Fiction of Richard Jefferies.'
From his early youth Jefferies was a reporter in the north of
Wiltshire and south of Gloucestershire, at political and
agricultural meetings, elections, police-courts, markets, and
Boards of Guardians. He inquired privately or officially into the
history of the Great Western Railway works at New Swindon, of the
local churches and families, of ancient monuments, and he
announced the facts with such reflections as came to him, or might
be expected from him, in newspaper articles, papers read before
the Wiltshire Archaeological Society, and in a booklet on 'The
Goddards of North Wilts.' As reporter, archaeologist, and
sportsman, he was continually walking to and fro across the vale
and over the downs; or writing down what he saw, for the most part
in a manner dictated by the writing of other men engaged in the
same way; or reading everything that came in his way, but
especially natural history, chronicles, and Greek philosophy in
English translations. He was bred entirely on English, and in a
very late paper he could be so hazy about the meaning of
'illiterate' as to say that the labourers 'never were illiterate
mentally; they are now no more illiterate in the partial sense of
book-knowledge.' He tried his hand at topical humour, and again
and again at short sensational tales. But until he was twenty-four
he wrote nothing which could have suggested that he was much above
the cleverer young men of the same calling. There was nothing fine
or strong in his writing. His researches were industrious, but not
illuminated. If his range of reading was uncommon, it gave him
only some quotations of no exceptional felicity. His point of view
could have given no cause for admiration or alarm. And yet he was
not considered an ordinary young man, being apparently idle,
ambitious, discontented, and morose, and certainly unsociable and
negligently dressed. He walked about night and day, chiefly alone
and with a noticeable long stride. But if he was ambitious, it was
only that he desired success--the success of a writer, and
probably a novelist, in the public eye. His possessions were the
fruits of his wandering, his self-chosen books and a sensitive,
solitary temperament. He might have been described as a clever
young man, well-informed, a little independent, not first-rate at
shorthand, and yet possibly too good for his place; and the
description would have been all that was possible to anyone not
intimate with him, and there was no one intimate with him but
himself. He had as yet neither a manner nor a matter of his own.
It is not clear from anything remaining that he had discovered
that writing could be something more than a means of making party
views plausible or information picturesque. In 1867, at the age of
nineteen, he opened a description of Swindon as follows:
'Whenever a man imbued with republican politics and
progressionist views ascends the platform and delivers an
oration, it is a safe wager that he makes some allusion at least
to Chicago, the famous mushroom city of the United States, which
sprang up in a night, and thirty years ago consisted of a dozen
miserable fishermen's huts, and now counts over two hundred
thousand inhabitants. Chicago! Chicago! look at Chicago! and see
in its development the vigour which invariably follows
republican institutions.... Men need not go so far from their
own doors to see another instance of rapid expansion and
development which has taken place under a monarchical
government. The Swindon of to-day is almost ridiculously
disproportioned to the Swindon of forty years ago....'
Eight years later Jefferies rewrote 'The Story of Swindon' as it is
given in this book, and the allusion to Chicago was reduced to this:
'The workmen required food; tradesmen came and supplied that
food, and Swindon rose as Chicago rose, as if by magic.'
Yet it is certain that in 1867 Jefferies was already carrying about
with him an experience and a power which were to ripen very slowly
into something unique. He was observing; he was developing a sense
of the beauty in Nature, in humanity, in thought, and the arts; and
he was 'not more than eighteen when an inner and esoteric meaning
began to come to him from all the visible universe, and undefinable
aspirations filled him.'
In 1872 he discovered part of his power almost in its perfection. He
wrote several letters to the _Times_ about the Wiltshire labourer,
and they were lucid, simple, moderate, founded on his own
observation, and arranged in a telling, harmonious manner. What he
said and thought about the labourers then is of no great importance
now, and even in 1872 it was only a journalist's grain in the scale
against the labourer's agitation. But it was admirably done. It was
clear, easy writing, and a clear, easy writer he was thenceforth to
the end.
These letters procured for him admission to _Fraser's_ and other
magazines, and he now began for them a long series of articles,
mainly connected with the land and those who work on the land. He
had now freedom and space to put on paper something of what he had
seen and thought. The people, their homes, and their fields, he
described and criticized with moderation and some spirit. He showed
that he saw more things than most writing men, but it was in an
ordinary light, in the same way as most of the readers whom he
addressed. His gravity, tenderness and courage were discernible, but
the articles were not more than a clever presentation of a set of
facts and an intelligent, lucid point of view, which were good grist
to the mills of that decade. They had neither the sagacity nor the
passion which could have helped that calm style to make literature.
'The Story of Swindon' (_Fraser's_, May, 1875) is one of three or
four articles which Jefferies wrote at that time on a subject not
purely his own. As a journalist he had had to do a hundred things
for which he had no strong natural taste. This article is a good
example of his adaptable gifts. He was probably equal to grappling
with any set of facts and ideas at the word of command. In 'coming
to this very abode of the Cyclops' the _North Wilts Herald_ reporter
survives, and nothing could be more like everybody else than the
phrasing and the atmosphere of the greater part, as in 'the ten
minutes for refreshment, now in the case of certain trains reduced
to five, have made thousands of travellers familiar with the name of
the spot.' This is probably due to lack not so much of skill as of
developed personality. When he describes and states facts, he is
lucid and forcible; when he reflects or decorates, he is often showy
or ill at ease, or both, though the thought on p. 130 is valid
enough. Through the cold, colourless light between him and the
object, he saw and remembered clearly; short of creativeness, he was
a master--or one of those skilled servants who appear masters--of
words. The power is, at this distance, more worthy of attention than
the achievement. The power of retaining and handling facts was one
which he never lost, but it was absorbed and even concealed among
powers of later development, when reality was a richer thing to him
than is to be surmised from anything in 'The Story of Swindon.'
'Unequal Agriculture' (_Fraser's_, May, 1877) and 'Village
Organization' (_New Quarterly_, October, 1875) belong to the same
period. They describe and debate matters which are now not so new,
though often as debatable. The description is sometimes felicitous,
as in the 'steady jerk' of the sower's arm, but is not destined for
immortality; and the picture of a steam-plough at work he himself
surpassed in a later paper. But it is sufficiently vivid to survive
for another generation. Since Cobbett no keener agriculturist's eye
or better pen had surveyed North Wiltshire. The most advanced and
the most antiquated style of farming remain the same in our own day.
Whether these articles were commissioned or not, their form and
direction was probably dictated as much by the expressed or supposed
needs of the magazine as by Jefferies himself. His own line was not
yet clear and strong, and he consciously or unconsciously adopted
one which was a compromise between his own and that of his
contemporaries. In fact, it is hard in places to tell whether he is
expressing his own opinion or those of the farmers whom he has
consulted; and he still writes as one of an agricultural community
who is to remain in it. But many of the suggestions in 'Village
Organization' may still be found stimulating, and the inactivity of
men in country parishes is not yet in need of further description;
while the fact that 'the great centres of population have almost
entirely occupied the attention of our legislators of late years' is
still only fitfully perceived. It should be noticed, also, that he
is true to himself and his later self, if not in his valiant
asseveration of the farmer's sturdy independence, yet in the wish
that there should be an authority to 'cause a parish to be supplied
with good drinking water,' or that there should be a tank, 'the
public property of the village.'
To 'Unequal Agriculture' the editor of _Fraser's Magazine_ appended
a note, saying that if England were to be brought to such a pitch of
perfection under scientific cultivation as Jefferies desired, 'a few
of us would then prefer to go away and live elsewhere.' And there is
no doubt that he was carried away by his subject into an
indiscriminate optimism, for he turned upon it sadly and with equal
firmness in later life. But the writing is beyond that of the
letters to the _Times_, and in the sentences--
'The plough is drawn by dull, patient oxen, plodding onwards now
just as they were depicted upon the tombs and temples, the
graves and worshipping-places, of races who had their being
three thousand years ago. Think of the suns that have shone
since then; of the summers and the bronzed grain waving in the
wind; of the human teeth that have ground that grain, and are
now hidden in the abyss of earth; yet still the oxen plod on,
like slow Time itself, here this day in our land of steam and
telegraph'
--in these sentences, though they are commonplace enough, there is
proof that the writer already had that curious consciousness of the
past which was to give so deep a tone to many of his pages later on.
But in these papers, again, what is most noticeable is the practical
knowledge and the power of handling practical things. Though he
himself, brought up on his father's farm, had no taste for farming,
and seldom did any practical work except splitting timber, he yet
confines himself severely to things as they are, or as they may
quickly be made to become by a patching-up. These are 'practical
politics for practical men.' Consequently the clear and forcible
writing is only better in degree than other writing of the moment
with an element of controversy, and represents not the whole truth,
but an aspect of selected portions of the truth. When it is turned
to other purposes it shows a poor grace, as in 'a widespread ocean
of wheat, an English gold-field, a veritable Yellow Sea, bowing in
waves before the southern breeze--a sight full of peaceful poetry;'
and the sluggish, customary euphemism of phrases like 'a few calves
find their way to the butcher' is tedious enough.
'The Idle Earth' (_Longman's_, December, 1894), 'After the County
Franchise' (_Longman's_, February, 1884), and 'The Wiltshire
Labourer' (_Longman's_, 1887), belong to Jefferies' later years.
'The Idle Earth' was published only after his death, but, like the
other two, was written, probably, between 1884 and 1887. He was no
longer writing as a practical man, but as a critical outsider with
an inside knowledge. 'The Idle Earth' is an astonishing
curiosity--an extreme example of Jefferies' discontent with things
as they are. 'Why is it,' he asks, 'that this cry arises that
agriculture will not pay?... The answer is simple enough. It is
because the earth is idle one-third of the year.' He looks round a
January field and sees 'not an animal in sight, not a single
machine for making money, not a penny being turned.' He wishes to
know, 'What would a manufacturer think of a business in which he was
compelled to let his engines rest for a third of the year?' Then he
falls upon the miserable Down-land because that is still more idle
and still less productive. 'With all its progress,' he cries, 'how
little real advance has agriculture made! All because of the
stubborn, idle earth.' It is a genuine cry, to be paralleled by
'Life is short, art long,' and by his own wonder that 'in twelve
thousand written years the world has not yet built itself a House,
unfilled a Granary, nor organized itself for its own comfort,' by
his contempt for 'this little petty life of seventy years,' and for
the short sleep permitted to men.
The editor of _Longman's_ had to explain that, in publishing 'After
the County Franchise,' he was not really 'overstepping the limit
which he laid down in undertaking to keep _Longman's Magazine_ free
from the strife of party politics, because it might be profitable to
consider what changes this Bill will make, when it becomes law, in
the lives and the social relations of our rural population.' It was
true that Jefferies was no longer a party politician. He was by that
time above and before either party. He is so still, and the
reappearance of these no longer novel ideas is excusable simply
because Jefferies' name is likely to gain for them still more of the
consideration and support which they deserve, for it may be hoped
that our day is ready to receive the seed of trouble and advance
contained in the modest suggestion which he believed to be
compatible with 'the acquisition of public and the preservation of
private liberty.'
['We now govern our village ourselves;] why should we not
possess our village? Why should we not live in our own houses?
Why should we not have a little share in the land, as much, at
least, as we can pay for?... Can an owner of this kind of
property be permitted to refuse to sell? Must he be compelled to
sell?'
Twenty-five years ago Jefferies, knowing that neither land nor
cottages were to be had, that there was no security of tenure for
the labourer, hoped for the day when 'some, at least, of our people
may be able to set up homes for themselves in their own country.' He
believed that 'the greater his freedom, the greater his attachment
to home, the more settled the labourer,' the firmer would become the
position of labourer, farmer, and landowner. Yet an advanced
reformer of our own day--Mr. Montague Fordham in 'Mother Earth'--has
still to cry the same thing in the wilderness; and it is still true
that 'you cannot have a fixed population unless it has a home, and
the labouring population is practically homeless.' On the other
hand, it should be remembered that Jefferies also says: 'Parks and
woods are becoming of priceless value; we should have to preserve a
few landowners, if only to have parks and woods.'
These later articles are far more persuasive than their
predecessors, for here there is no doubt, not merely that they are
sincere, but that they are the unprejudiced opinion of the man as
well as of the agriculturist. He has ceased to be concerned only
with things as they are, or as they may be made to-morrow. He allows
himself to think as much of justice as of expediency, of what is
fitting as well as of what is at once possible. The phrases,
'Sentiment is more stubborn than fact,' 'Service is no inheritance,'
'I do not want any paupers,' 'I should not like men under my thumb,'
'Men demanding to be paid in full for full work, but refusing
favours and petty assistance to be recouped hereafter; ... men with
the franchise, voting under the protection of the ballot, and voting
first and foremost for the demolition of the infernal Poor Law and
workhouse system'--these simple phrases fall with peculiar and even
pathetic force, in their context, from the mystic optimist whom pain
was ripening fast in those last years. Even here he uses phrases
like 'the serious work which brings in money' and commends 'push and
enterprise' as a substitute for 'the slow plodding manner of the
labourer.' But these are exceptional. As to the writing itself, of
which this is an example,
'By home life I mean that which gathers about a house, however
small, standing in its own grounds. Something comes into
existence about such a house, an influence, a pervading feeling,
like some warm colour softening the whole, tinting the lichen on
the wall, even the very smoke-marks on the chimney. It is home,
and the men and women born there will never lose the tone it has
given them. Such homes are the strength of a land'
--it remains simple; but by the use of far fewer words, and of fewer
orator's phrases, its unadorned directness has almost a positive
spiritual quality.
But these agricultural essays, good as they were, and absorbing as
they did all of Jefferies' social thoughts to the end of his life,
became less and less frequent as he grew less inclined and less able
to adapt his mind and style to the affairs of the moment.
In the same year as 'The Story of Swindon' he published 'Village
Churches' and 'Marlborough Forest' (_Graphic_, December 4 and
October 23, 1875). These and his unsuccessful novels remain to show
the direction of his more intimate thoughts in the third decade of
his life. They are as imperfect in their class as 'The Story of
Swindon' is perfect in its own. They are the earliest of their kind
from Jefferies' pen which have survived. He is dealing already with
another and a more individual kind of reality, and he is not yet at
home with it in words. He approaches it with ceremony--with the
ceremony of phrases like 'the great painter Autumn,' 'a very tiger
to the rabbit,' 'the titles and pomp of belted earl and knight.' But
here for the first time he is so bent upon himself and his object
that he casts only an occasional glance upon his audience, whereas
in his practical papers he has it continually in view, or even ready
to jog his elbow if he dreams. The full English hedges, which he
condemns as an agriculturist, he would now save from the modern
Goths; he can even be sorry for the death of beautiful jays. Here,
for the first time, it might occur to a student of the man that he
is more than his words express. He does not see Nature as he sees
the factory, and when he and Nature touch there is an emotional
discharge which blurs the sight, though presently it is to enrich
it. As yet we cannot be sure whether he is perfectly genuine or is
striving for an effect based upon a recollection of someone
else--probably it is both--when he writes:
'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';
when he speaks of the '_visible_ silence' of the old church, or
exclaims:
'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....'
But already he is expressing a thought, which he was often to repeat
in his maturity and in his best work, when he says of the
church-bell that 'In the day when this bell was made, men put their
souls into their works. Their one great object was not to turn out
100,000 all alike.'
It was in the next year, 1876, that he began to think of using his
observation and feeling in a 'chatty style,' of setting down 'some
of the glamour--the magic of sunshine, and green things, and clear
waters.' But it was not until 1878 that he succeeded in doing so.
In 'The Amateur Poacher' and its companions, there was not between
Jefferies and Nature the colourless, clear light of the factory or
the journalist's workshop, but the tender English atmosphere or, if
you like, that of the happy and thoughtful mind which had grown up
in that atmosphere.
'Choosing a Gun' and 'Skating' belong to the period, if not the
year, of 'The Amateur Poacher.' In fact, the passage about the
pleasure of having the freedom of the woods with a wheel-lock, is
either a first draft of one of the best in that book, or it is an
unconscious repetition. Here again is a characteristic complaint
that 'the leading idea of the gunmaker nowadays is to turn out a
hundred thousand guns of one particular pattern.' The suggestion
that some clever workman should go and set himself up in some
village is one that has been followed in other trades, and is not
yet exhausted. The writing is now excellent of its kind, but for the
word 'Metropolis' and the phrase 'no great distance from' Pall Mall.
The negligent--but slowly acquired--conversational simplicity
captures the open air as calmly and pleasantly as the humour of the
city dialogue.
'Skating' is slight enough, but ends with grace and an unsought
solemnity which comes more and more into his later writing, so that
in 'The Spring of the Year' (_Longman's_, June, 1894), after many
notes about wood-pigeons, there comes such a genuine landscape as
this:
'The bare, slender tips of the birches on which they perched
exposed them against the sky. Once six alighted on a long
birch-branch, bending it down with their weight, not unlike a
heavy load of fruit. As the stormy sunset flamed up, tinting the
fields with momentary red, their hollow voices sounded among the
trees.'
These notes for April and May, 1881, were continued in 'The Coming
of Summer,' which forms part of 'Toilers of the Field.' This
informal chitchat, addressed chiefly to the amateur naturalist,
became an easy habit with Jefferies. The talk is of the plainest and
pleasantest here, and full of himself. With his 'I like sparrows,'
he was an older and tenderer man than in 'The Gamekeeper' period.
The paper gives some idea of his habits and haunts round about
Surbiton before the fatal chain of illnesses began at the end of
this year. Personally, I like to know that it was finished on May
10, 1881, at midnight, with 'Antares visible, the summer star,' very
low in the south-east above Banstead Downs, and Lyra and Arcturus
high above in the south, if Jefferies was writing at Tolworth, as
presumably he was. This paper is to be preferred to 'Birds of
Spring'--likeable mainly for the pages on the chiff-chaff and
sedge-warbler--which does much the same thing, in a more formal
manner, for the instruction of readers of _Chambers's_ (March,
1884), who wished to know about our 'feathered visitors.'
'Vignettes from Nature' were posthumously published in _Longman's_
(July, 1895). They abound in touches from the depth and tenderness
of his nature, and when they were written Jefferies had passed into
the most distinct period of his life--the period which gave birth to
his mature ideas, and, in particular, to 'The Story of My Heart.'
The light which he had carried about with him since his youth--a
light so faint that we cannot be sure he was aware of it in
retrospect--now leaped up with a mystic significance. Professor
William James, in 'Varieties of Religious Experience,' describes
four marks by which states of mind may be recognized as mystical.
The subject says that they defy expression. They are 'states of
insight into depths of truth unplumbed by the discursive intellect
... and, as a rule, they carry with them a curious sense of
authority for after-time,' because the mystic believes that 'we both
become one with the Absolute, and we become aware of our oneness.'
They 'cannot be sustained for long ... except in rare instances half
an hour, or at most an hour or two, seems to be the limit beyond
which they fade into the light of common day.' And when the mystic
consciousness has set in, 'the mystic feels as if his own will were
in abeyance, and, indeed, sometimes as if he were grasped and held
by a superior power.' Most of the striking cases in Professor
James's collection occurred out of doors. These marks may all be
recognized in Jefferies' record of his own experience--'The Story
of My Heart.' Yet it was, in the opinion of a very high
authority--Dr. Maurice Bucke, in 'Cosmic Consciousness'--an
imperfect experience, and his state is described as 'the twilight
of cosmic consciousness.' Dr. Bucke gives as the marks of the
cosmic sense--a subjective light on its appearance; moral
elevation; intellectual illumination; the sense of immortality;
loss of the fear of death and of the sense of sin; the suddenness
of the awakening which takes place usually at a little past the
thirtieth year, and comes only to noble characters (_e.g._, Pascal,
Blake, Balzac, and Whitman); a charm added to the personality; a
transfiguration of the subject in the eyes of others when the
cosmic sense is actually present. Jefferies appears to have lacked
the subjective light and the full sense of immortality. 'If,' says
Dr. Bucke, 'he had attained to cosmic consciousness, he would have
entered into eternal life, and there would be no "seems" about it;'
while he finds positive evidence against Jefferies' possession of
the perfect cosmic sense in his 'contempt for the assertion that
all things occur for the best.' The sense varied in intensity with
Jefferies, and in its everyday force was not much more than
Kingsley's 'innate feeling that everything I see has a meaning, if
I could but understand it,' which 'feeling of being surrounded with
truths which I cannot grasp amounts to indescribable awe
sometimes.'
Cosmic consciousness, the half-grasped power which gave its
significance to his autobiography, to 'The Dawn,' 'The Sun and the
Brook' (_Knowledge_, October 13, 1882), 'On the Downs' (_Standard_,
March 23, 1883), 'Nature and Eternity' (_Longman's_, May, 1895), and
many other papers, may have been the faculty for which Jefferies
prayed in 'The Story of My Heart,' and to which he desired that
mankind should advance. In Dr. Bucke's view, an imperfectly
supported one, men with this faculty are becoming more and more
common, and he thinks that 'our descendants will sooner or later
reach, as a race, the condition of cosmic consciousness, just as
long ago our ancestors passed from simple to self consciousness.'
In Jefferies the development of this sense was gradual. Phrases
suggesting that it is in progress may be found in earlier books--in
the novels, in 'Wood Magic' and 'Bevis'--but 'The Story of My
Heart' is the first that is inspired by it; and after that, all his
best work is affected either by the same fervour and solemnity, or
by its accompanying ideas, or by both. It is to be detected in many
sentences in 'Vignettes,' and in the concluding prayer, 'Let the
heart come out from the shadow of roofs to the open glow of the
sky...'--even in the plea to the mechanics in 'A King of Acres'
(_Chambers's_, January, 1884) not to 'pin their faith to any theory
born and sprung up among the crushed and pale-faced life of modern
time, but to look for themselves at the sky above the highest
branches ... that they might gather to themselves some of the
leaves--mental and spiritual leaves--of the ancient forest, feeling
nearer to the truth and soul, as it were, that lives on in it.' It
is in the aspiration and hope--in the sense of 'hovering on the
verge of a great truth,' of 'a meaning waiting in the grass and
water,' of a 'wider existence yet to be enjoyed on the earth'--in
the 'increased consciousness of our own life,' gained from sun and
sky and sea--it is everywhere in 'Sun and Brook' and 'On the
Downs.' It suffuses the sensuous delicacy and exuberance and the
spiritual joy of 'Nature and Eternity.' That paper belongs to, and
in a measure corrects, 'The Story of My Heart.' There is less
eloquence than in the autobiography, and a greater proportion of
that beautiful simplicity that is so spiritual when combined with
the characteristic cadence of Jefferies at his best. The mystic has
a view of things by which all knowledge becomes real--or
disappears--and all things are seen related to the whole in a
manner which gives a wonderful value to the least of them. The
combination of sensuousness and spiritual aspiration in this and
other essays produces a beauty perhaps peculiar to Jefferies--often
a vague beauty imperfectly adumbrated, as was the meaning of the
universe itself in his mood of 'thoughts without words, mobile like
the stream, nothing compact that can be grasped and stayed: dreams
that slip silently as water slips through the fingers.' In 'Nature
and Eternity' this is all the more impressive because Coate Farm
and its fields, Jefferies' birthplace and early home, is the scene
of it. That beauty haunts the last four essays of this book as it
haunts 'The Story of My Heart,' like a theme of music, always a
repetition, and yet never exactly the same. 'The Dawn' is one of
the most beautiful things which Jefferies wrote after his
awakening. The cadences are his best--gentle, wistful, not quite
certain cadences, where the effect of the mere sound cannot be
detached from the effect of the thought hovering behind the sound.
How they kindle such a passage as this, where Jefferies again
brings before us his sense of past time!--
'But though so familiar, that spectral light in the silence has
never lost its meaning, the violets are sweet year by year
though never so many summers pass away; indeed, its meaning
grows wider and more difficult as the time goes on. For think,
this spectre of light--light's double-ganger--has stood by the
couch of every human being for thousands and thousands of years.
Sleeping or waking, happily dreaming, or wrenched with pain,
whether they have noticed it or not, the finger of this light
has pointed towards them. When they were building the pyramids,
five thousand years ago, straight the arrow of light shot from
the sun, lit their dusky forms, and glowed on the endless
sand....'
The whole essay is delicately perfect--as free from the spiritual
eloquence of the autobiography and from the rhetoric of the
agricultural papers as from the everyday atmosphere of earlier work
and the decoration of the first outdoor essays. It is pure spirit.
Take any passage, and it will be seen that in thought and style
Jefferies' evolution is now complete. He has mounted from being a
member of a class, at first undistinguishable from it, then clearly
more enlightened, but still of it, and seeing things in the same
way, up to the position of a poet with an outlook that is purely
individual, and, though deeply human, yet of a spirituality now
close as the grass, and now as the stars. The date of 'The Dawn' is
uncertain. It may have been 1883, the year of 'The Story of My
Heart,' or it may have been as late as 1885. This book, therefore,
contains, like no other single volume, the record of Jefferies'
progress during about ten of his most important years. It was not
for nothing that Jefferies, man and boy, had gone through the phases
of sportsman, naturalist, and artist, and always worshipper, upon
the hills, 'that he lived in a perpetual commerce with external
Nature, and nourished himself upon the spirit of its forms.' Air and
sun so cleaned and sweetened his work that in the end the cleanness
and sweetness of Nature herself become inseparable from it in our
minds.
CHOOSING A GUN
The first thought of the amateur sportsman naturally refers to his
gun, and the questions arise: What sort of a gun do I want? Where
can I get it? What price shall I pay? In appearance there can be no
great difficulty in settling these matters, but in practice it is
really by no means easy. Some time since, being on a visit to the
Metropolis, I was requested by a friend to get him a gun, and
accepted the commission, as M. Emile Ollivier went to war, with a
light heart, little dreaming of the troubles that would start up in
the attempt to conscientiously carry it out. He wanted a good gun,
and was not very scrupulous as to maker or price, provided that the
latter was not absolutely extravagant. With such _carte blanche_ as
this it seemed plain-sailing, and, indeed, I never gave a second
thought to the business till I opened the door of the first
respectable gunmaker's shop I came across, which happened to be no
great distance from Pall Mall. A very polite gentleman immediately
came forward, rubbing his hands as if he were washing them (which is
an odd habit with many), and asked if there was anything he could do
for me. Well, yes, I wanted a gun. Just so--they had one of the
largest stocks in London, and would be most happy to show me
specimens of all kinds. But was there any special sort of gun
required, as then they could suit me in an instant.
'Hum! Ah! Well, I--I'--feeling rather vague--'perhaps you would let
me see your catalogue----'
'Certainly.' And a handsomely got-up pamphlet, illustrated with
woodcuts, was placed in my hands, and I began to study the pages.
But this did not suit him; doubtless, with the practice of his
profession, he saw at once the uncertain manner of the customer who
was feeling his way, and thought to bring it to a point.
'You want a good, useful gun, sir, I presume?'
'That is just it'--shutting the catalogue; quite a relief to have
the thing put into shape for one!
'Then you can't do better than take our new patent double-action
so-and-so. Here it is'--handing me a decent-looking weapon in
thorough polish, which I begin to weigh in my hands, poise it to
ascertain the balance, and to try how it comes to the present, and
whether I can catch the rib quick enough, when he goes on: 'We can
let you have that gun, sir, for ten guineas.'
'Oh, indeed! But that's very cheap, isn't it?' I thoughtlessly
observe, putting the gun down.
My friend D. had mentioned a much higher amount as his ultimatum.
The next instant I saw in what light my remark would be taken. It
would be interpreted in this way: Here we have either a rich
amateur, who doesn't care what he gives, or else a fool who knows
nothing about it.
'Well, sir, of course it's our very plainest gun'--the weapon is
tossed carelessly into the background--'in fact, we sometimes call
it our gamekeeper gun. Now, here is a really fine thing--neatly
finished, engraved plates, first choice stock, the very best walnut,
price----' He names a sum very close to D.'s outside.
I handle the weapon in the same manner, and for the life of me
cannot meet his eye, for I know that he is reading me, or thinks he
is, like a book. With the exception that the gun is a trifle more
elaborately got up, I cannot see or feel the slightest difference,
and begin secretly to suspect that the price of guns is regulated
according to the inexperience of the purchaser--a sort of sliding
scale, gauged to ignorance, and rising or falling with its density!
He expatiates on the gun and points out all its beauties.
'Shooting carefully registered, sir. Can see it tried, or try it
yourself, sir. Our range is barely three-quarters of an hour's ride.
If the stock doesn't quite fit your shoulder, you can have
another--the same price. You won't find a better gun in all London.'
I can see that it really is a very fair article, but do not detect
the extraordinary excellencies so glibly described. I recollect an
old proverb about the fool and the money he is said to part with
hastily. I resolve to see more variety before making the final
plunge; and what the eloquent shopkeeper thinks is my growing
admiration for the gun which I continue to handle is really my
embarrassment, for as yet I am not hardened, and dislike the idea of
leaving the shop without making a purchase after actually touching
the goods. But D.'s money--I must lay it out to the best advantage.
Desperately I fling the gun into his hands, snatch up the catalogue,
mutter incoherently, 'Will look it through--like the look of the
thing--call again,' and find myself walking aimlessly along the
pavement outside.
An unpleasant sense of having played a rather small part lingered
for some time, and ultimately resolved itself into a determination
to make up my mind as to exactly what D. wanted, and on entering the
next shop, to ask to see that, and that only. So, turning to the
address of another gunmaker, I walked towards it slowly, revolving
in my mind the sort of shooting D. usually enjoyed. Visions of green
fields, woods just beginning to turn colour, puffs of smoke hanging
over the ground, rose up, and blotted out the bustling London scene.
The shops glittering with their brightest goods placed in front, the
throng of vehicles, the crowds of people, faded away, the pace
increased and the stride lengthened as if stepping over the elastic
turf, and the roar of the traffic sounded low, like a distant
waterfall. From this reverie the rude apostrophes of a hansom-cabman
awoke me--I had walked right into the stream of the street, and
instead of the awning boughs of the wood found a whip upheld,
threatening chastisement for getting in the way. This brought me up
from imagination to logic with a jerk, and I began to check off the
uses D. could put his gun to on the fingers. (1) I knew he had a
friend in Yorkshire, and shot over his moor every August. His gun,
then, must be suited to grouse-shooting, and must be light, because
of the heat which often prevails at that time, and renders dragging
a heavy gun many miles over the heather--before they pack--a
serious drawback to the pleasure of the sport. (2) He had some
partridge-shooting of his own, and was peculiarly fond of it. (3) He
was always invited to at least two battues. (4) A part of his own
shooting was on the hills, where the hares were very wild, where
there was no cover, and they had to be knocked over at long
distances, and took a hard blow. That would require (a) a
choke-bore, which was not suitable either, because in covers the
pheasants at short ranges would not unlikely get 'blown,' which
would annoy the host; or (b) a heavy, strong gun, which would take a
stiff charge without too much recoil. But that, again, clashed with
the light gun for shooting in August. (5) He had latterly taken a
fancy to wild-fowl shooting by the coast, for which a very
hard-hitting, long-range gun was needed. It would never do if D.
could not bring down a duck. (6) He was notorious as a dead shot on
snipe--this told rather in favour of a light gun, old system of
boring; for where would a snipe or a woodcock be if it chanced to
get 200 pellets into it at twenty yards? You might find the claws
and fragments of the bill if you looked with a microscope. (7) No
delicate piece of workmanship would do, because he was careless of
his gun, knocked it about anyhow, and occasionally dropped it in a
brook. And here was the shop-door; imagine the state of confusion my
mind was in when I entered!
This was a very 'big' place: the gentleman who approached had a way
of waving his hand--very white and jewelled--and a grand, lofty idea
of what a gun should cost. 'Twenty, thirty, forty pounds--some of
the L30 were second-hand, of course--we have a few, a very few,
second-hand guns'--such was the sweeping answer to my first mild
inquiry about prices. Then, seeing at once my vacillating manner,
he, too, took me in hand, only in a terribly earnest, ponderous way
from which there was no escape. 'You wanted a good general gun--yes;
a thoroughly good, well-finished, _plain_ gun (great emphasis on the
'plain'). Of course, you can't get anything new for _that_ money,
finished in style. Still, the plain gun will shoot just as well (as
if the shooting part was scarcely worth consideration). We make the
very best plain-finished article for five-and-twenty guineas in
London. By-the-by, where is your shooting, sir?' Thrust home like
this, not over-gratified by a manner which seemed to say, 'Listen to
an authority,' and desiring to keep an incog., I mutter something
about 'abroad.' 'Ah--well, then, this article is precisely the
thing, because it will carry ball, an immense advantage in any
country where you may come across large game.'
'How far will it throw a ball?' I ask, rather curious on that
subject, for I was under the impression that a smooth-bore of the
usual build is not much to be relied on in that way--far less,
indeed, than the matchlocks made by semi-civilized nations. But it
seems I was mistaken.
'Why--a hundred yards point-blank, and ten times better to shoot
with than a rifle.'
'Indeed!'
'Of course, I mean in cover, as you're pretty sure to be. Say a wild
boar is suddenly started: well, you pull out your No. 4
shot-cartridge, and push in a ball; you shoot as well
again--snap-shooting with a smooth-bore in jungle or bush. There's
not a better gun turned out in town than that. It's not the
slightest use your looking for anything cheaper--rebounding locks,
best stocks, steel damascene barrels; fit for anything from snipe to
deer, from dust to buck-shot----'
'But I think----' Another torrent overwhelms me.
'Here's an order for twenty of these guns for Texas, to shoot from
horseback at buffalo--ride in among them, you know.'
I look at my watch, find it's much later than I imagine, remark that
it is really a difficult thing to pick out a gun, and seize the
door-handle.
'When gentlemen don't exactly know what they're looking for it _is_
a hard job to choose a gun'--he smiles sarcastically, and shuts me
out politely.
The observation seems hard, after thinking over guns so intently;
yet it must be aggravating to attempt to serve a man who does not
know what he wants--yet (one's mood changes quickly) it was his
own fault for trying to force, to positively force, that
twenty-five-guinea thing on me instead of giving me a chance to
choose. I had seen rows on rows of guns stacked round the shop, rank
upon rank; in the background a door partly open permitted a glimpse
of a second room, also perfectly coated with guns, if such an
expression is permissible. Now, I look on ranges of guns like this
much the same as on a library. Is there anything so delicious as the
first exploration of a great library--alone--unwatched? You shut the
heavy door behind you slowly, reverently, lest a noise should jar on
the sleepers of the shelves. For as the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus
were dead and yet alive, so are the souls of the authors in the care
of their ancient leathern binding. You walk gently round the walls,
pausing here to read a title, there to draw out a tome and support
it for a passing glance--half in your arms, half against the shelf.
The passing glance lengthens till the weight becomes too great, and
with a sigh you replace it, and move again, peering up at those
titles which are foreshortened from the elevation of the shelf, and
so roam from folio to octavo, from octavo to quarto, till at last,
finding a little work whose value, were it in the mart, would be
more than its weight in gold, you bear it to the low leather-covered
arm-chair and enjoy it at your ease. But to sip the full pleasure of
a library you must be alone, and you must take the books yourself
from the shelves. A man to read must read alone. He may make
extracts, he may _work_ at books in company; but to read, to absorb,
he must be solitary. Something in the same way--except in the
necessity for solitude, which does not exist in this case--I like to
go through a battery of guns, picking up this one, or that, glancing
up one, trying the locks of another, examining the thickness of the
breech. Why did not the fellow say, 'There are our guns; walk round,
take down what you please, do as you like, and don't hurry. I will
go on with some work while you examine them. Call me if you want any
explanation. Spend the day there if you like, and come again
to-morrow.' It would have been a hundred chances to one that I had
found a gun to suit D., for the shop was a famous one, the guns
really good, the workmanship unimpeachable, and the stock to select
from immense. But let a thing be never so good, one does not care to
have it positively thrust on one.