44 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 



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 

 JeiFeries, " 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 



