222 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 



of his writing. If shut up in the house he 

 could not write at all." 



In both men there was to be observed a great 

 strength of common-sense. And again, there 

 was this other point common to both, that no 

 college I here imitate Emerson on Thoreau 

 ever offered either of them a diploma or a 

 professor's chair : no academy made either 

 man its corresponding secretary, its founder, 

 or even its member. And the following 

 passage, written by Emerson of Thoreau, might 

 be equally well written, mutatis mutandis, of 

 Jefferies : 



" Thoreau dedicated his genius with such 

 entire love to the fields, hills and waters of 

 his native town, that he made them known 

 and interesting to all reading Americans, and 

 to people over the sea. The river on whose 

 banks he was born and died he knew from its 

 springs to its confluence with the Merriniack. 

 He had made summer and winter observations 

 on it for many years, and at every hour of the 

 day and night. Every fact which occurs in the 

 bed, on the banks, or in the air over it the 



