GLEAMS OF LIGHT. 99 



and wrote a long letter about " The Wiltshire 

 Labourer." This letter he sent first to a 

 certain London editor (name of the paper not 

 stated), who refused it. He then sent it to 

 the editor of the Times, who not only accepted 

 it and printed it, but had a leader written 

 upon it. Nor was this all. The letter called 

 forth many answers ; to these Jefferies replied 

 in two more letters. The subject was noticed 

 in the Pall Mall Gazette, in the Spectator, and 

 in other journals. We are not here concerned 

 with the results of the case Jefferies wrote 

 on the side of the tenant farmer. It is suffi- 

 cient to note the fact of the letters and 

 their immediate result namely, that Jefferies 

 sprang at one bound into the position of 

 an authority on things agricultural. He 

 dated the letters from Coate Farm, Swindon; 

 so that he probably appeared to the editor and 

 to the general public as a farmer, rather than 

 as a newspaper reporter. To the whole of his 

 after-life these letters were most important. 

 They denoted, though as yet he knew it not, an 

 entirely new departure. He was to experience 

 many a bitter disappointment over novels 



72 



