i68 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 



are eyes which have looked into shop windows 

 and across crowded streets for half a century, 

 save for certain intervals every year ; they are 

 also eyes which need glasses ; they are slow 

 to see things unexpected, ignorant of what 

 should be expected ; they are helpless eyes 

 when they are turned from men and women to 

 flowers, ferns, weeds, and grasses ; they are, in 

 fact, like unto the eyes of those men with whom I 

 mostly consort. None of us poor street- struck 

 creatures ! can see the things we ought to see. 

 It happened unto me by grace and special 

 favour, I may call it that in the course of 

 my earthly pilgrimage I had for a great many 

 years certain business transactions at regular 

 short intervals with one who knew Jefferies 

 well, because he married his only sister. The 

 habit began, as soon as I learned that fact, of 

 talking about Richard Jefferies as soon as our 

 business was completed. Henceforward, there- 

 fore, week by week, I followed the fortunes of 

 this man, and read not only his books and his 

 papers, but learned his personal history, and 

 heard what he was doing, and watched him curi- 

 ously, unknown and unsuspected by himself. 



