YOUTH AND EARLY WRITINGS 63 



' scientifical studies.' He mentions how he used to be 

 afraid of thunder and lightning, but had the cowardice 

 frightened out of him when lightning struck his aunt's 

 house one day while he was there alone. He has been 

 writing a story, with ' character rather than sensational 

 incident ; my characters are many of them drawn from 

 life . . . scenery described from places that I have seen.' 

 The virtuous are rewarded and the wicked punished, 

 exactly as in the Bible, he says. He is more cheerful 

 now, though he has no regular newspaper work. 



On August 28, 1868, his handwriting is slow, precise, and 

 in pencil : 



' Thank God I am getting better now, and can sit up 

 in bed ; but I am so miserably weak, and my legs are as 

 thin as a grasshopper's. . . . But when I come to think it 

 over calmly, I can almost thank God that I have been ill, 

 for it has made me pause and think, and I can now see 

 what a wrong and even wicked course I have been secretly 

 pursuing for a long time, and I hope I shall take warning. 

 God has been very merciful to me this time. I never 

 found my Bible a consolation before, but I have during 

 the last two or three days, for its promises are full of mercy, 

 and I have found it true, for I have prayed earnestly and 

 God has answered me. . . . 



' Above all, I am in the country, and can see the green 

 grass out of window, and it is quiet. . . . 

 ' I have such a longing to see the sea.' 

 He must have a change, and has saved enough to pay 

 for it. 



His aunt at Sydenham was one of his dearest friends ; 

 she was a religious woman, and would be sure to offer the 

 sick youth religious consolation. These utterances on the 

 edge of the grave — the letter has several repetitions and 

 slips — are insignificant, therefore, unless they can be 

 shown to have any bearing upon Jefferies' life in the days 

 of strength which followed. Had they taken a more 

 individual form that might suggest that this tremulous 

 repentance issued from the holiest chambers of his heart. 



