OF RICHARD JEFFERIES 



on purpose for it. They were dead, the 

 whole race of them, and these their 

 skeletons were as dust under my feet. 

 Nature sets no value upon life neither 

 of minute hill-snail nor of human being.— 

 1 Field and Hedgerow' : Hours of Spring. 



NATURE sets no value upon life, 

 neither of mine nor of the 

 larks that sang years ago. 

 The earth is all in all to me, but I am 

 nothing to the earth : it is bitter to know 

 this before you are dead. These de- 

 licious violets are sweet for themselves ; 

 they were not shaped and coloured and 

 gifted with the exquisite proportion and 

 adjustment of odour and hue for me.— 

 ' Field and Hedgerow' : Hours of Spring. 



THERE was everything to repel 

 — the cold, the frost, the hard- 

 ness, the snow, dark sky and 

 ground, leaflessness; the very furze 



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