INTRODUCTION 



But while we gather from this strangely beautiful 

 heart story the promptings of his real self, the mere 

 happenings of his uneventful life were so vitally for- 

 mative that it is important to be familiar with them. 



Jefferies was born at the ancestral home, Coate 

 Farm, Wiltshire, England, November 6, 184.8, and 

 was a veritable son of the soil, being a descendant of 

 an old stock of yeomen. Mr. Salt, in his sympathetic 

 and intimate Study of Jefferies,describes the landscape 

 around Coate as "a country of rich grassy lowlands 

 dominated by high, bare downs ; one which is full 

 of treasure for naturalist and archaeologist alike; 

 in no other district, perhaps, could the future writer 

 of Wild Life in a Southern County have found choicer 

 material for his work. All the best characteristics 

 of typical English scenery were grouped within easy 

 distance of Richard Jefferies' birthplace. About a 

 hundred yards from the house is Coate lake, or 

 reservoir, a large sheet of water which played an 

 important part in the canoe voyages and other 

 adventures of his childhood, and is frequently re- 

 ferred to in his writings. But it was the Downs 

 in particular that influenced his youthful imagina- 

 tion ; and we are informed, on the authority of one 

 who learned it from Jefferies himself, that " it was 

 when he roamed about the long, rolling Downs that 

 he felt his life most full, his thoughts most clear, 

 his spirit most exalted and yet most at rest." 



