3i6 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 



Arcadia such things may happen, and, I sup- 

 pose, do constantly happen. The story be- 

 longs properly to the chapter on English 

 country life last quarter of the nineteenth 

 century, which, when it is written, will, I 

 think, be taken altogether from the works of 

 Jefferies and Thomas Hardy. 



"The Story of Bevis " is the story of 

 Guido writ large. It is also the story of 

 Jefferies himself as a boy. Observe, most 

 writers of fiction, if they were proposing to 

 write the story of a boy, would first create an 

 imaginary boy, and then surround him with 

 imaginary adventures, invented on purpose 

 for that boy. Jefferies does nothing of the 

 kind. It is not his method. He remembers 

 his own boyhood the most delightful part of 

 it when he played with his brother and his 

 cousin upon the shores of the lake behind the 

 farmhouse, and made his canoe, and paddled 

 about the water exploring the creeks and 

 islets, the bays and harbours of that wonderful 

 coast. The boy, Bevis, is, in fact, himself. 

 Therefore, he does all the things that Jefferies 

 and his brother did in their boyhood. Bevis 



