90 THE LIFE OF RICHARD JEFFERIES 



round, accuses the farmer of starvation wages, shouts 

 for what is really communism, and perhaps even in his 

 sullen rage descends to crime.' The thought is often still 

 commonplace, reflecting his commonplace environment, 

 as when, in his narrative of the progress of a clever squire, 

 he remarks that ambition, ' if not too extravagant, is a 

 virtue.' He was writing a great deal at this time, and 

 the fact that he was writing these chapters for a Con- 

 servative newspaper may be supposed to have affected 

 his general tone. As yet he was hardly free from the ideas 

 of his class, and he did what was expected of him. He 

 put in nothing which he did not believe to be true ; but he 

 did not put in everything which was true. His admira- 

 tion of the country curate is evidently sincere, but is it 

 not possible that he was carried away not entirely by his 

 heart and intelligence when he painted the worn-out 

 enthusiast whose eyes were ' bright and burning still 

 with living faith '? His book is, on the whole, partisan. 

 Dealing with the Cottage Charter, he scored undoubtedly, 

 but at this distance of time the applause that must have 

 greeted him is ghostly and faint ; and when he says, 

 ' Even hunting, which it would have been thought every 

 individual son of the soil would stand up for, is not 

 allowed to continue unchallenged,' we can afford to laugh. 

 Also, it is not true that the fields ' have never yet inspired 

 those who dwell upon them with songs uprising from the 

 soil.' Yet the book tells in the end by its weight of wide 

 and intimate knowledge, and it has some good things in 

 several different kinds — the observation and dry humour 

 in the presentation of the ' low public '; the genial, 

 straightforward picture of the good inn at Fleeceborough, 

 with its excellent simple food, well cooked under perfect 

 conditions, and its strong ale ; the old-fashioned farmer's 

 tea, and the daughters laughing straight from the heart in 

 the joyousness of youth ; Squire Filbard's portrait ; and 

 the descriptions in ' Hodge's Fields ' are almost in his 

 best manner. The ' Conclusion ' has a plain statement 

 of the man-made unhappiness of the aged labourer ; it 



