THE COUNTRY LIFE. 219 



perhaps, even to think that there is so much ; 

 they are more at home among their geraniums 

 in the conservatory ; they even call his style 

 a cataloguing. 



There is also another thing where Jefferies 

 is outside the sympathies of the multitude. 

 This solitary, who was never so happy as when 

 he wandered alone upon the downs with no 

 human creature in sight, is yet intensely 

 human. All kinds of injustice, and especially 

 social injustice, the grinding and robbery and 

 oppression of the producer, the pride of caste 

 and class, the pretensions of rank and the in- 

 solence of money these things make him 

 angry. Now, if there be one thing more lament- 

 ably sure and certain than another, it is that 

 injustice does not make the average man 

 angry. If money is to be made by injustice, 

 he will be unjust. He will call his injustice, 

 unless he covers and hides it up, the custom 

 of the trade, and persuade himself that it is 

 laudable and even Christian so to act. When 

 another man speaks the truth about these in- 

 justices, he gets uncomfortable. Because, 

 you see, he goes to church, and perhaps bears 



