OF RICHARD JEFFERIES 



HOW melancholy the inexpress- 

 ible noise when the fair is 

 left behind, and the wet 

 vapours are settling and thickening 

 around it! But the melancholy is not 

 in the fair— the ploughboy likes it; it 

 is in ourselves, in the thought that thus, 

 though the years go by, so much of 

 human life remains the same — the same 

 blatant discord, the same monotonous 

 roundabout, the same poor gingerbread. 

 — 'Nature near London': The South- 

 down Shepherd. 



THE little rules and little ex- 

 periences, all the petty ways 

 of narrow life, are shut off 

 behind by the ponderous and impassable 

 cliff; as if we had dwelt in the dim light 

 of a cave, but coming out at last to look 

 at the sun, a great stone had fallen and 

 closed the entrance, so that there was 

 no return to the shadow. 



87 



