72 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 



what he would like done or anything else, so 

 that I go my own way and ask nobody. . . ." 

 The letters are full of the little familiar gossip 

 concerning this person and that, but he can 

 never resist the temptation of telling his aunt 

 who " enters into his prospects " all that 

 he is doing. He has now spent two months 

 over a novel this young man thinks that two 

 months is a prodigiously long time to give to 

 a novel. " I have taken great pains with it/' 

 he says, " and flatter myself that I have pro- 

 duced a tale of a very different class to those 

 sensational stories I wrote some time ago. I 

 have attempted to make my story lifelike by 

 delineating character rather than by sensational 

 incidents. My characters are many of them 

 drawn from life, and some of my incidents 

 actually took place." This is taking a step in 

 the right direction. One wonders what this 

 story was. But alas ! there were so many in 

 those days, and the end of all was the same. 

 And yet the poor young author took such 

 pains, such infinite pains, and all to no purpose, 

 for he was still groping blindly in the dark, 

 feeling for himself. 



