98 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 



To Jefferies it /was better than this, because 

 it presently led him the wanderer in the 

 labyrinth of fruitless effort to the line in 

 which he was to make his reputation, and to 

 find his true success. Is there anything in 

 the world more truly delightful than the first 

 success in the career you have chosen and 

 ardently desire to adorn ? If one desires to 

 become an authority on any subject, to read 

 your own paper in a great magazine ; ixf one 

 desires to become a journalist, to have the 

 columns of a great paper opened to you ; if 

 one wishes to be a great novelist, to read the 

 reviews of your first work, and to be assured 

 that you are on the right track nothing in 

 the world surely can equal that blissful 

 moment. 



It came to this pair, thus waiting and 

 hoping, in November, 1872, in this wise: 



In the autumn of that year, the mind of the 

 nation was beginning to be exercised with the 

 subject of the relations of the farmer with the 

 agricultural labourer. Richard Jefferies, in- 

 spired, if any man ever was, with the thought 

 that he knew all about the subject, sat down 



