

CHAPTER VIII. 



THE LONGMAN LETTERS. 



MR. CHARLES LONGMAN, who for the last eight 

 years of Jefferies' life was one of his most 

 constant friends, has lent me a packet of letters 

 written to him by Jefferies between the years 

 1878 and 1886. They form by themselves, 

 like the previous letters to Mrs. Harrild, a 

 kind of diary of his life during that period. 



" The papers on the ' Gamekeeper at Home/ 

 in the Pall Mall Gazette" Mr. Longman 

 writes, " were the first things of Jefferies 7 

 that attracted me. I thought at once that 

 they seemed to me written by a man who 

 could see more of the secrets of nature than 

 anyone whose work I had ever come across. 

 I wrote to Mr. George Smith, asking him to 

 forward a letter to the writer of the papers, 



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